ARMENIAN NGOS CALL FOR WITHDRAWING AMENDED DRAFT LAW "ON PUBLIC ORGANIZATIONS"
PanARMENIAN.Net
05.11.2009 19:03 GMT+04:00
/PanARMENIAN.Net/ On October 5, American University’s (AUA) Business
Center hosted public discussion over the bill on making changes in,
and amendments to, RA law "On Public Organizations". Discussion
was organized upon the initiative of AUA Provost and Vice President
Lucig Danielian, expert of public organizations’ initiative group
Arsen Stepanyan, lawyer Tachat Ter-Stepanyan and Armenian public
sector representatives.
In his speech, Arsen Stepanyan criticized the draft law, noting that
it received Government’s approval and was sent to Parliament without
public discussions. He called for withdrawing the bill and starting
discussions between Government and public sector.
With regard to separate clauses contained in draft law, he pointed out
the unacceptability of imposing on NGOs obligation to submit report to
social security fund (in addition to Tax Service) and get it printed
in newspapers which have no less than 1000 copies. The latter, he
said, creates additional financial burden for organizations. "Such
reports should reflect all the activities of organization, changes
in its management structure and financial resources of past year,"
Stepanyan stressed.
In addition he said that proposed changes are difficult to bring to
life, since Armenia has 6 thousand public organizations, which will
be unable to submit January-March reports and get them published in
papers. "It follows from here that newspapers that day should publish
more 100 NGO reports," expert noted.