Saturday, 3 February 2018
PM Takes Note of 2017 Performance Report of Ministry of Territorial Administration and Development
Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan called at the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Development to get acquainted with the activities and priorities completed in 2017, as well as the tasks set for 2018.
“It is crucial for us to formulate the architecture of community and Marz administration jointly with the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Development so that all our partners – the staffs of community heads and Marz Governors – could have clear understand of standards, maximally incorporated in development programs. We need to translate everything into accurate digits: each area, region, community, emergency buildings, physical training, school situation, construction, that is, we should have all necessary information, based on which the community heads could draft their activity reports for the public at large. We should know which way Marz Governors and line ministries are going to implement the tasks set in specific areas, whether it is a matter of community, culture, business, cadastre, etc,” the Prime Minister stated in his opening remarks.
Minister David Lokyan reported that 2017 was a year of fundamental changes and introduction of systemic schemes in the system of territorial and local self-governance. He noted that all the priorities or measures stemming from the Government’s action plan are either completed or in process. According to the Minister, discussions have shown that the most serious problem rests with local self-governing authorities who did not have systemic principles on key issues relating to community development, income growth, etc.
For this purpose, the Ministry drafted 10 methodological support manuals that have already been handed over to communities. As a result, the situation changed in 34 enlarged communities, with 1,125 billion drams transferred from administrative budgets to community budgets.
David Lokyan noted that in 2017, communities’ own revenues amounted to AMD 38,545.1 million (100.1% performance), compared with 2016. In the meantime, the income collection index increased by 11.9% or AMD 4,098.8 million, while own revenues increased by 9.2% or 2,544.6 million drams for 5 types of taxes. Steps are being taken to establish databases and create a unified database.
The Prime Minister attached importance to registering all the property available in communities and accounting for the most accurate property tax. The Head of Government instructed the Minister of Territorial Administration and Development to submit a proposal to that effect. In this context, the Premier referred to the criteria for assessing the Governors’ work. “We estimate the performance of our regional teams in 14 indices. We will do that on the basis of comparison. We are now thinking about whether to increase this number or not; there are fields that have been left out, but we are sure that the governor and our team should know the facts on the spot. 2018 should be a decisive year in terms of clearly formulated rules of the game. We have to lay out the whole field, finalize it and understand what we want to achieve within 3 months or a year. If we follow year after year, we will come to a situation that will solve the current problems.”
Touching upon the problem of garbage disposal, Minister Lokyan noted that since the beginning of 2017, the number of communities implementing garbage collection has increased by 56%. The amount of collected fees rose by 19%.
