Thursday, Yerevan Residents Protest Against Waste-Disposal Crisis • Anush Muradian A group of citizens on Thursday held a protest in front of the office of a private company engaged in garbage disposal in the Armenian capital of Yerevan. According to the demonstrators, the Lebanese-run company has provided poor services for the city, leaving it littered with garbage throughout the summer months. Along with other protesters Arusik Mkrtchian brought with her a plastic bag with garbage that she said she had collected in the yard of her residential building that had not been removed from there for days. “They do not collect it anyway, that’s why I’ve decided to bring it myself,” said Mkrtchian. “I live in the city center. This situation can simply cause an epidemic outbreak. It is disgusting to see this garbage and smell it. People don’t know what to do. The same disgraceful situation is everywhere.” The problem of Sanitek’s poor waste disposal has repeatedly been raised by Armenian authorities in recent weeks. Last month the Yerevan municipality imposed a fine of over $25,000 on the company and warned it about stricter sanctions ahead unless the situation improved. Yet, the situation does not appear to have improved since then. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian also addressed the issue in his weekend live Facebook broadcast. He said that the government was concerned about the situation that he described as unacceptable. He said it was the consequence of the “short-sighted policy” of the Yerevan mayor’s office. “A [waste disposal] monopoly has, in fact, been created in the city, and poor management in this system in recent years has led to the problems we experience today,” said Pashinian. “We must draw serious conceptual conclusions. I think one of the options may be that we place several companies and not just one in charge of garbage collection in the capital.” Pashinian also advocated the construction of a recycling plant in Armenia to solve the problems of waste dumps. In explaining the deterioration of its work several weeks ago a Sanitek manager said the company experienced shortage of garbage trucks that he said frequently broke down because of bad roads leading to the landfill site. Sanitek also claimed excessive damage to its trash cans caused by residents that increases overall costs for the company. Kristina Hovannisian, an assistant to the Sanitek executive director, met with participants of today’s protest. She said that the executive director was not in town and promised that the company will hold a press conference at the end of next week to answer all questions. Armenia Sets Stricter Punishment For Incentives To Voters The Armenian parliament in session (archive photo) Armenian lawmakers on Thursday voted unanimously to set a stricter criminal punishment for giving people various incentives to vote for a particular candidate, party or programs with the offer of cash or somehow else during elections and referendums. Sixty-six members of the 101-seat National Assembly, who attended the special session, backed, in the first reading, the government-drafted bill amending a number of laws, including the Criminal Code, to that effect. Deputy Justice Minister Artur Hovannisian, who presented the bill in parliament, called for measures to be taken to exclude pressure, vote buying and other illegal influences on citizens’ expression of will during electoral processes. “We really need to make sure that citizens make their choices freely,” he said. The bill envisages criminalization of electoral bribes in any form - be it a promise of cash or provision of cash on preferential terms, provision of food, services or other incentives under the guise of charity – during campaigning periods. “Today it is also considered illegal, but now only administrative responsibility is envisaged for that, with the highest penalty set at 2.5 million drams (about $5,150). We find that such deeds amount to vote buying. And today vote buying is criminally punishable,” Hovannisian explained. Under the amendments, the violation may land the offender in prison for up to six years. The vote on the amendments in the second and final reading is due on September 7. Pashinian Government Mulls Flat Income Tax • Suren Musayelyan Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian chairs a cabinet meeting in Yerevan, 19 July 2018. Describing the current levels of taxes as “heavy” for citizens and the tax legislation as “bad and encouraging tax evasion”, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian on Thursday suggested at least two options to tackle the issue. In a live Facebook broadcast following today’s government session Pashinian advocated a flat income tax system that he said would be fair to all and would close loopholes for employers to evade taxes, while stimulating the growth of salaries. Currently Armenia has a three-tier income tax system, implying that workers who get a monthly salary of up to 150,000 drams (about $310) pay an income tax at the level of 23 percent, those whose monthly salaries are in the range between 150,000 and 2 million (about 4,100) drams pay a 25-percent tax and those whose salaries are higher than that are taxed 36 percent on anything that is above 2 million drams. According to Pashinian, the government initially considered about a dozen variants of reforming the tax legislation, but eventually arrived at just two options, with the first being the introduction of a two-tier income tax system. Under this system, citizens receiving a monthly salary of up to 250,000 drams (about $515) would be taxed 23 percent, while those receiving higher salaries would be taxed 25 percent of their income. “This system has its logic, which is social justice. Those who will get more will pay more. On the other hand, in that case employers would still not be interested in raising salaries of their employees,” Pashinian said. In contrast, according to the prime minister, the introduction of a flat income tax of 23 percent for all, given that it is equivalent to the sum of the profit tax and dividend tax, would help solve several problems, including simplification of tax laws for potential foreign investors. Pashinian said that the government hopes the additional revenues of citizens enabled by this reform would return to the country’s economy and will, in particular, help develop small and medium-sized business. At the same time, Pashinian said that he also backed the idea of the income tax being cut by at least 0.5 percentage points every year. “In five years or so our income tax rate would be at 20 percent,” said the prime minister, adding that in his opinion this would provide an additional impetus to economic growth. The prime minister also announced plans to lower profit and dividend taxes for non-resident investors to make them equal to those paid by local investors. “We think that we should not discriminate between resident and non-resident investors for the simple reason that among non-resident entrepreneurs there are many Diaspora Armenians… Besides, we think that such discrimination between foreign and local investors is not a good message in terms of improving the investment environment,” he said. Pashinian said his government is ready to hear proposals from all stakeholders and promised to continue to present to the public all ideas that his cabinet has in terms of tax reforms. Press Review “Zhamanak” writes: “Ex-president Robert Kocharian’s lawyer stated that his client has nothing to do with the March 1, 2008 predawn action of security forces against demonstrators in Yerevan’s Freedom Square in connection with which the Special Investigative Service has launched a new criminal probe. The lawyer said Kocharian did not give an order for a special operation. If it continues like this, the day is near when Kocharian himself or through his lawyers will declare that on March 1, 2008 he was not even the president of the Republic of Armenia and did not occupy any other high-ranking post. An interesting picture arises – the supreme commander-in-chief had nothing to do with the order on barracking the troops and had nothing to do with the police’s special operation. And what did he have to do with then as the supreme commander-in chief?” “Hraparak” writes in its editorial: “Campaigning in Yerevan municipal elections will kick off on September 10 and will last 12 days, which is too short a period for candidates to duly present themselves to voters. Perhaps, this is the reason why the political parties and groups running in the elections have already begun to openly campaign despite the fact that this is a gross violation of the law. True, the head of the Central Electoral Commission (CEC), who is in a terrified condition awaiting his resignation, gives assurances that there are no violations, but it is patently clear that politicians are not allowed to campaign before the official start of the campaigning period. In a normal country such a violation would be enough to cancel the election results afterwards at one of the candidates’ request. When once the then ruling Republican Party placed election banners in the city with large images of top candidates several days before the official start of the campaigning period the media and the public kicked up a row. The CEC then also left the matter without attention, as the election body has never done anything against the will of the governing party.” In an interview with “168 Zham” political analyst Vadim Dubnov comments on the latest developments in Armenian-Russian relations. “Many say that there are tensions, there is a crisis in Armenian-Russian relations. But I am not of this opinion. I see no reasons for that. I think that Moscow subjects [Prime Minister Nikol] Pashinian to a little trolling as recently it has worked in this genre. But no snags should be looked for in it,” he says. “Aravot” writes: “The problem of waste disposal persists in Yerevan. The city continues to be buried in piles with garbage. It even reminds some of the once mafia-run Italian city of Naples that experienced a waste-disposal crisis several years ago. True, the local mafia stood behind that crisis as it was financially not interested in garbage to be removed, but protests took pace there to get a solution to the problem, people called for shooting all those responsible. And in Yerevan after the ‘revolution of love and solidarity’, and even before that there have not been any Italian passions. One can say that we have an atmosphere of ‘garbage and solidarity’.” (Tigran Avetisian) Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2018 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org