OFFICE TO BE ESTABLISHED IN ARMENIA’S PARLIAMENT FOR DEALING WITH BUDGETARY ISSUES

YEREVAN, March 25. /ARKA/. The National Assembly of Armenia passed
today at the second and final reading a bill implying establishment of
an office inside the parliament for dealing with budget-related issues.

The authors of the bill think that after the separation of the Control
Chamber from the National Assembly the parliament actually was left
without mechanisms of shriveling the government budget.

Deputy Finance Minister Vakhtang Mirumyan said in this connection
that the legal status of the office and its experts will be specified.

He said the office may be established this year and the establishment
will be paid from the money allocated for the parliament from the
government budget.

Gagik Jangiryan, an MP from the opposition Armenian National Congress,
called this decision anti-constitutional, since such an office is
fit to countries with parliamentary governance.

Naira Zohrabyan, head of Prosperous Armenia party’s faction in the
National Assembly, said her party is opposed to the bill aimed at
serving the interests of ‘a certain group’.

The bill was passed by 88 MPs, 20 voted against it and four abstained.

The bill was designed by Parliament Speaker Galust Sahakyan, who is a
member of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia, his fellow partisans
Gagik Minasyan, Khosrov Harutyunyan, Samvel Nikoyan, Sukias Avetisyan,
one member of Armenian Revolutionary Federation/Dashnaktsutyun Artsvik
Minasyan, Orinats Yerkir party’s Mher Shahgeldyan and former prime
minister Hrant Bagratyan. —0—–