Wednesday, 10 December 2008
The Governing Council of Millenium Challenge Account-Armenia SNCO met at the Office of Government, presided at by GC Chairman, RA Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan.
The Council discussed and approved a package consisting of the request for a tenth disbursement and attached documents, inclusive of the annual report, summary quarterly report, performance monitoring chart, disbursement pre-conditions, procurement reports, procurement and working plans. It was noted that under the mentioned request, the MCA-Armenia expects to be allocated USD 6,811,305 next quarter (January-March, 2009) through the general financing system. Quarterly expenditure will rise to USD 7,109,153.
According to the MCA-Armenia SNCO Chief Executive Director, the requested funds will cover the following program activities: Rural Road Rehabilitation, Irrigated Agriculture, Monitoring and Evaluation, Program Administration and Monitoring. Ara Hovsepyan also mentioned that thanks to the funds available from the government, the cost of building activities will rise to USD 11,669,871 (without VAT) by the end of this quarter, with the actual and projected spending for the month of December totaling to USD 28,081,321.
In particular, the following activities were carried out in the period under review: under the Rural Road Rehabilitation Activity, the repairs of a 24.5km-long road section in the western part of Armenia are nearing completion. Work is underway under the first-package contracts, including the rehabilitation of a 273km-long road section to a total cost of USD 60.3 million. Under the Irrigated Agriculture Activity, 4 tertiary canals have been built in 4 rural settlements. It was noted that by the end of this year, there will be finalized design packages for 6 water-mains, 7 gravity systems and 18 pump-stations to be built in all marzes of the Republic next year. Over 18.000 program beneficiaries have so far been taught on the subject of intra-organizational water management and high-value output under the From Water-to-Market component of the Irrigated Agriculture Activity. Under the same program, 128 pilot farms have been created and over 130 agricultural loans have been extended to total sum of USD 1.5 million.
Once approved by the GC Chairman, the request package will be sent off to the MCC for consideration.
The meeting similarly discussed and endorsed the draft contract on Rehabilitation of Six Water-Mains (Package No.1) under the Infrastructure component of the Irrigated Agriculture Activity.
The council was briefed on the targets of the 2nd stage of the loan component of the From Water-to-Markey Activity of the Irrigated Agriculture Project. Then, the meeting discussed the operational guidelines entitled "Administrative Policy and Procedures for Lending Program."
In conclusion, the council members were presented reference notes on the approaches and technologies used in engineering water-mains and tertiary canals, the audits and other checks of MCA-Armenia SNCO's financial and program activities etc.
