INDIFFERENCE AND INCOMPETENCE: WHY SOME VILLAGES FAIL TO PROSPER

2009/0 6/15 | 18:36
Feature Stories marzes

We found Qarashen village mayor Garnik Shahnoubaryan sitting on the
pavement outside his house. Even though it was only noon, we couldn’t
convince him to open the doors of the mayor’s office. "The key’s in
my car and my deputy’s driven somewhere," he said.

Before meeting up with the mayor, we tried to make out which of
the three buildings lined up side by side housed the village head
office. None of them have any outward sign of housing the local
self-government office. There were no placards on the wall, not
even an Armenian flag, which is required by law. The mayor pointed
to his office but suggested that we go to his house and continue
our conversation

Mr. Shahnoubaryan didn’t think his job was all that important and
answered our questions regarding the position by lazily waving his
hand in the air and declaring, "There’s nothing there. Why should I
go? There’s no money to anything…" He told us that the village’s
projected 2009 budget was 7 million drams of which 4 million was
supposed to come from local revenue sources and 3 million from
state subsidies. Yearly, only 60-70% of local taxes are successfully
collected. Land taxes are projected to be 2 million. The mayor told
us that local residents hardly farm the local land since it is quite
unproductive.

There are plans to construct a water system for the village and the
community must come up with 3.2 million drams as its contribution. The
mayor said that with financing from the World Bank a company was
selected to do the work through competitive bidding. He confessed
that the community has only been able to save 1 million drams from tax
revenues and that he is looking to make up the balance via benevolent
contribution made by former Qarashen residents now living abroad.

"There’s no money to do anything" – this was the constant refrain
of the mayor. When we asked him what his first work project would
be if there were funds, he said that the village would build a milk
processing plant so that even a few residents would be gainfully
employed.

We should point out that such a plant used to operate nearby. The
residents would sell their milk to the plant but they weren’t happy
with the terms. The plant would buy the milk at cheap prices; 85
drams per liter.

Residents we talked to in the village told us that the plant would
grade their milk as having a low fat content. This way they could
buy it on the cheap. They had no proof to back up their claims other
than the fact that their milk was graded with a higher fat content in
the Soviet period, when they added four liters of water to the milk’s
tare weight container, than it is today, when they deliver pure milk.

When we asked the mayor what the budget was being spent on, he answered
that it hardly covered the salaries of his office staff. The Qarashen
municipality has eight employees – mayor, mayor’s deputy, accountant,
cashier, agriculturalist, cultural center director and janitor. The
position of staff director is still vacant. No one has applied for the
post during two open competitions. "What would the person do?" asked
the mayor, adding that the 45,000-50,000 monthly wage has attracted
none of the village’s unemployed.

We didn’t conceal the fact that we thought that eight salaried
positions for a municipality with nothing to do was a bit extreme. The
mayor thought differently but added that in any event there soon
would be job cuts due to a lack of funds. Only two or three positions
would remain. "Pretty soon, no one will even seek the post of mayor,"
Mr. Shahnoubaryan said confidently.

The mayor was even more flabbergasted when he asked him about the
activities of the municipality and the municipal council. "Who
cares? What’s the point? Why should anyone want to become a council
member?" he retorted. Qarashen, a village of 635 residents, has four
council members. The fifth position on the council is vacant. No
one wants the job. "There’s no land to allocate and no money in the
budget to distribute," said the mayor regarding the functions of the
council. "We meet about once every two months regarding the water
and flooding," he said, claiming that the council’s decisions were
posted in his office. "It’s a small village.

People come and go. They read what’s posted."

"There’s nothing here. The village is down and out," the mayor said to
bolster his argument that any long-term project was a waste of time and
effort. Despite his pessimism, people aren’t leaving Qarashen. The
village doctor and nurse told us that there are 106 children in
the village up till the age of eighteen and that there’s a rise in
births. It would seem that the picture isn’t all that gloomy as the
mayor depicts.

Mayor Shahnoubaryan claimed that the same situation exists in the
neighboring village. A closer look at the village of Tegh however
points to glaring dissimilarities. There’s a new cultural center in
Tegh boasting a well-maintained garden. There’s a cafe and hospital
nearby as well. The two-story elementary school and kindergarten in
Tegh is a far cry from what we saw in Qarashen.

It was 3:30 pm, the middle of the work day, when we approached the
municipal office in Tegh. Despite the fact that nobody was inside,
the walls were covered with a variety of information notices including
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and a citizen’s social,
property and other rights. All this was the result of one of the local
NGO’s and imparted a sense that work was actually being carried out
by the municipality.

Doesn’t this go to prove that it is the absence of bureaucracy and
having qualified staff in decision-making positions, rather than mere
dollars and cents, that is at the root of some villages prospering
and others stuck in a quagmire? Satenik Margaryan