The government has “frozen” the capital expenditures planned in the state budget. These are expenses of primary importance, which are aimed at the implementation of economic programs, the formation of infrastructures, and the solution of defense problems.

It is those costs that have been “frozen”.

This year they spent almost half less capital expenditures.

In the first 5 months of the previous year, the capital expenditures made with the funds of the state budget amounted to almost 205 billion drams. This year they made only 109 billion.

They decreased by 96 billion drams. And this in the event that they had planned to carry out much larger capital expenditures this year. In the first half of the year, they were supposed to spend 376 billion drams in capital, but in 5 months they spent only 109 billion drams.

Planned expenses of 267 billion remained in the air. Compared to the plan, the performance in 5 months was only 29 percent.

It is clear that they will not be able to complete the remaining 71 percent in 1 month.

If they spent only 96 billion drams in 5 months, naturally, it is impossible to spend 267 billion drams in the last 1 month of the first half. And, as always, we will have the fact that the capital expenditures planned for the first half of the year will once again remain incomplete. The economic and infrastructural projects planned within those funds will not be implemented.

Among them, the planned capital expenditures in the field of defense will not be implemented.

It seems that the government no longer values ​​the capital expenditure of the defense sector. They probably think that they have already brought peace, and the strengthening of defense is secondary.

Defense capital spending has fallen by more than 68 percent this year. Compared to the previous year, they spent 290 million dollars less.

“Compared to the same period of the previous year, capital expenditures of the state budget decreased by 46.8 percent (by 96 billion drams), mainly due to the decrease of 68.3 percent (107.7 billion drams) of capital expenditures made within the framework of the “Supporting the Defense of the Republic of Armenia” program,” the Ministry of Finance recorded in the performance report of the first 5 months of the budget.

He recorded, but did not give any explanation why, compared to the previous year, the capital expenditures, including the capital expenditures aimed at strengthening the defense, decreased at such a sharp rate.

These figures show that many projects of primary importance cannot be completed on time. And for that, not only is no one responsible, but they don’t consider it necessary to give an explanation. They were probably so busy with the elections that they even ignored the plans for defense. In the pre-election period, we saw what the officials were busy with, including the Minister of Defense.

These authorities are justly blamed for burying the country in debt. But they are not able to complete the projects planned within the framework of the borrowed funds on time.

Near the end of the year, the performance of loan programs was almost zero.

“A low index was recorded in terms of loans received from external sources, which amounted to 2.7 billion drams or 1.5 percent of the half-year plan,” this is the record of the Ministry of Finance.

But the words of the Ministry of Finance are very mild in this case. They could easily say that they have completely failed the plan.

They had planned to implement projects worth 180 billion drams or 486 million dollars with credit funds, but they implemented only 2.7 billion drams or 7.3 million dollars. 472.7 million dollars worth of projects remained unfulfilled.

At first glance, it may seem that it is good that they limited the attraction of loans. But it is not so. In addition to the fact that they did not implement the planned projects within the framework of those funds, we did not get the results we were supposed to get, probably they also paid fines for the unused part of the loan funds. They buy loans, but very often they are unable to implement the programs planned within them on time, and that is why the state pays large fines.

The performance of targeted credit programs of the first semester was only 2.3 percent in 5 months. They planned to implement such projects worth 51 billion drams or about 138 million dollars, but they implemented only 1.2 billion.

Targeted loan programs of almost 135 million dollars were not implemented.

Why, for what reason, is not known.

At the expense of funds to be received from international financial organizations, they were supposed to finance 37.1 billion drams or more than 100 million dollars of targeted projects. They could not implement even one billion drams.

The same shameful situation is in the case of targeted credit funds taken from foreign countries. They planned to do 13.9 billion drams or more than 37 million dollars worth of works in the first half of the year, but in 5 months they did only 300 million drams worth of works or barely 800 thousand dollars.

In the budget, as always, they write numbers, make promises, outline plans, which in real life remain incomplete. They are not carried out on time, causing damage to the state and the economy. This is a clear failure of public finance management and it does not apply only to credit or targeted credit programs.

HAKOB KOCHARYAN

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