Friday,
Pashinian Demands Faster Tax Reforms
• Emil Danielyan
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian (C), the newly appointed chief of the
State Revenue Committee, Davit Ananian (L), and his predecessor Vartan
Haritunian meet senior SRC officials, Yerevan, .
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian demanded a more radical improvement of tax
administration in Armenia on Friday as he presented the new head of the State
Revenue Committee (SRC) to senior officials from the government agency.
Pashinian said reforms carried out by the previous SRC chief, Vartan
Harutiunian, are “not sufficient.” The SRC must avoid “hampering economic
entities” and the at the same time vigorously combat tax evasion and increase
tax revenue, he said.
Pashinian also told Harutiunian’s successor, Davit Ananian, to “root out
corruption” among tax and customs officers that has long been a major source of
complaints by Armenian businesspeople.
“The success of our efforts to transform the positive energy accumulated as a
result of recent political developments into concrete economic results greatly
depends on the work of the SRC, the tax and customs bodies,” he declared.
“Mr. Prime Minister, I can assure you that we will accomplish the tasks which
the country’s government will set for us,” said Ananian.
Ananian worked as a deputy minister of finance from October 2016 until his
appointment as SRC chief. The 46-year-old was a tax inspector in the 1990s and
ran a private tax and accounting consultancy from 2006-2016.
Armenia - A tax office in Yerevan, 8Nov2017.
Harutiunian, who is close to former Prime Minister Karen Karapetian, resigned
on Thursday. He pledged to embark on a major reform reforms after being named
to run the SRC in October 2016.
The total amount of taxes and customs duties collected by the SRC rose by more
than 7 percent last year, helping the government to cut the state budget
deficit to 3.3 percent of GDP. The SRC reported an even faster rise in state
revenue in the first quarter of this year.
At 1.16 trillion drams ($2.4 billion), the Armenian government’s 2017 tax
revenue was equivalent to almost 21 percent of GDP. The proportion is still
quite low by international standards, reflecting the scale of tax evasion in
Armenia.
The tax-to-GDP ratio stood at less than 18 percent in 2012. It rose by 0.5
percentage points in 2017, according to the SRC.
Harutiunian, whom Pashinian publicly thanked for his work, defended his track
record in a farewell statement to the SRC employees issued on Friday. “The
great effort to improve the [tax collection] system and the implementation of
effective projects have borne fruit: relations between business and the state
structure have been moved on to a plane of dialogue and partnership,” he said.
The International Monetary Fund praised the Karapetian government’s “efforts to
improve tax administration” already in June 2017. It said that they have
“contributed to the higher-than-projected revenue collection.”
New Justice Minister Warns Backers Of Jailed Opposition Gunmen
• Artak Hambardzumian
Armenia - Supporters of jailed members of an armed opposition group block a
street in Yerevan, 16 May 2018.
Justice Minister Artak Zeynalian on Friday urged supporters of an armed
opposition group that seized a police station in Yerevan in 2016 to avoid
destabilizing the situation in Armenia in the wake of what he called a
democratic revolution.
In recent days, several dozen people blocked a major street and a court
building in the Armenian capital to demand the immediate release of the three
dozen gunmen standing three separate trials on criminal charges stemming from
their July 2016 standoff with security forces which left three police officers
dead.
They unblocked the street on Thursday following an appeal from Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian. The latter said these and other disruptive protests held
across the country are “not understandable” after the success of his “velvet
revolution.”
Zeynalian, who was appointed as justice minister last week, echoed the
statements by Pashinian as well as former President Levon Ter-Petrosian, saying
that “an atmosphere of lawlessness could ruin the country.”
“Everyone must be conscious of their actions and make sure that they don’t
damage the common interest,” he told a news conference. “This revolution is a
unique revolution for the world and each of us is responsible for it. If
something crosses our mind then we must not exclude that it may contradict
others’ opinions.”
Armenia - Artak Zeynalian of the opposition Yelk bloc at a parliament session
in Yerevan, 12Dec2017.
While unblocking Yerevan’s Arshakuniats Avenue, the radical protesters
continued to surround on Friday a nearby court building where hearings are held
in the ongoing trial of the ten leading members of the armed group. They thus
prevented security forces from transporting the defendants back to their
prisons.
Representatives of the protesters met with Pashinian late on Thursday. Details
of the meeting were not immediately made public.
Pashinian, who was elected prime minister by the parliament on May 8,
reiterated earlier this week that one of his immediate tasks is to secure the
release of all “political prisoners” through solely legal mechanisms. But he
said the case of the gunmen that had seized a police base in Yerevan’s Erebuni
district is “a bit different” because of the three police casualties. He said
it must be resolved as a result of public “discussions” that must involve
relatives of the three slain policemen.
The leader of the gunmen, Varuzhan Avetisian, condemned Pashinian’s remarks as
“buffoonery” and “false humanism” in the courtroom on Wednesday. He again
strongly defended the 2016 attack, saying that casualties are inevitable during
such “rebellions.”
New Anti-Corruption Body Planned In Armenia
• Artak Hambardzumian
Armenia - A government building in Yerevan, 29 March 2018.
Armenia’s new government will set up a new and powerful state body in an effort
to fulfill its pledges to eradicate endemic corruption in the country, Justice
Minister Artak Zeynalian said on Friday.
Zeynalian said Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s cabinet will be more “resolute”
than the previous Armenian governments in combatting bribery, cronyism and
other corrupt practices.
“The government is planning to create soon an anti-corruption body equipped
with necessary legal guarantees and instruments,” he told a news conference.
“That body will be empowered to take preventive, operational-investigative and
educational measures. I want to stress that everything will be done to ensure
its complete independence.”
Zeynalian gave no further details, saying that the Justice Ministry is still
working on a legal “concept” for the anti-graft body. Armenian civic
organizations will also be involved in the effort, he said.
Pashinian promised, among other things, to “root out” corruption when he was
elected prime minister by the parliament on May 8 after weeks of massive street
protests led by him. He had for years accused the previous government of not
tackling the problem in earnest.
Armenia has until now had two anti-corruption bodies. One of them has advised
the prime minister while the other has processed mandatory income and asset
declarations from the country’s 600 most high-ranking state officials. Serzh
Sarkisian’s government was due to give the latter body more powers last month.
Sarkisian declared in November that combatting corruption has become “a matter
of national security.” His administration’s declared anti-graft efforts were
for years dismissed as a gimmick by opposition politicians and civil society
members.
Armenia ranked, together with Macedonia, Ethiopia and Vietnam, only 107th out
of 180 countries and territories evaluated in Transparency International’s 2017
Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) released in February.
Armenian PM Eyes U.S. Support For Reform Agenda
Armenia - Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian (R) meets with U.S.
Ambassador Richard Mills in Yerevan, .
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on Friday that he would welcome
U.S. assistance to wide-ranging reforms planned by his government.
Pashinian met with the U.S. ambassador to Armenia, Richard Mills, to discuss
the political situation in Armenia, U.S.-Armenian relations and regional
security.
“The Armenian government is interested in and attaches great importance to
partnership with the American government and its possible assistance to
democratization, the fight against corruption, human rights protection and
reforms planned in other areas,” he told Mills.
“We are full of energy to achieve our goals and concrete results, taking into
account the positive atmosphere in the country,” he added in remarks publicized
by his press office.
Mills was reported to express Washington’s readiness to support the reform
agenda of the new Armenian government. “The U.S. government is committed to
supporting your stated goals of democracy, human rights, transparency and
accountability, which will improve Armenia’s business environment and make the
country more attractive to U.S. investors,” said the envoy.
In a congratulatory message sent to the new Armenian premier earlier this week,
U.S. President Donald Trump said he looks forward to “working with you on the
many areas of mutual interest for our two countries.” Those include
“strengthening trade ties, democratic institutions, and regional security,”
wrote Trump.
The U.S. State Department issued a similar statement hours after the Armenian
parliament voted to elect Pashinian as prime minister on May 8 following weeks
of massive anti-government protests organized by him. It said Washington will
“work closely” with his government.
Mills met with Armenia’s newly appointed Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan later
in the day. According to the Armenian Defense Ministry, the two men reaffirmed
their countries’ readiness to step up bilateral military cooperation.
Press Review
“Zhamanak” says that recent days’ protests staged in various parts of Armenia
by groups of disgruntled citizens may have been spontaneous or organized by
political circles keen to undercut Nikol Pashinian’s government. The paper
claims that virtually all political forces other than Pashinian’s Civil
Contract party are interested in the failure of his government. “This situation
should not have been unexpected for Pashinian’s team,” it says. “The questions
is which steps have been prepared for that.”
“Chorrord Ishkhanutyun” says that what happened in Armenia was a political
struggle not between two rivals groups but between the people and “a small
group that had usurped power.” “And what is happening today is a continuation
of that struggle which has nothing to do with internal political processes,”
writes the paper. It says that Serzh Sarkisian and his clique are now trying to
“again sit on the people’s necks.” Sarkisian is using his Republican Party
(HHK) as a “weapon for achieving that goal,” it says.
“One of the reasons for the revolution is that the authorities suffered a
crushing defeat in the propaganda war,” editorializes “Aravot.” “It emerged
that the [government] propagandists lagged behind modern life and were under
the influence of stereotypes formed in the 1970s.” In particular, the paper
says Sarkisian’s administration for years ordered TV channels to broadcast his
10-minute speeches in full, causing a “negative propaganda effect” on
Armenians. “Now Pashinian appears on air a lot, but nobody is forced to show
him,” it says. “The prime minister is shown because that is of interest to TV
viewers for the simple reason that he became prime minister by the will of the
people.”
“After the victory of the velvet revolution many also expect a change in the
composition of the Central Election Commission (CEC),” writes “Zhoghovurd.”
“This is especially necessary before the fresh parliamentary elections because
the current CEC headed by Tigran Mukuchian is associated with electoral fraud.”
The paper quotes Mukuchian as saying that he has no plans to resign.
(Tigran Avetisian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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