58 disclosures in 2 months, price: 21 billion drams. budget receipts are growing

The government led by Nikol Pashinyan has managed to register a high increase in budget revenues within 2 months of being in office. At the same time, the increase was registered not so much due to the collection of taxes, but due to the anti-corruption actions taken.

Now let’s consider the abuses and embezzlements revealed from May 8 until today and evaluate their impact on the state budget. This is stated in the message published by the “Union of Conscious Citizens” NGO.

58 disclosures in 2 months, price: 21 billion drams

From May 2018 until now, a total of 58 cases of abuse with a total value of more than 21 billion drams have been revealed by law enforcement, investigative and tax authorities. This list includes such scandalous cases as the Yerevan City trade network (7.2 billion), the abuses of the “Norfolk Consulting” company (3.3 billion), the abuses in the agricultural sector (1.4 billion), the “Spayka” company (2 billion) and others. However, this list does not include those disclosures in connection with which the extent of the damage caused to the state is not yet known (Manvel Grigoryan, Vachagan Ghazaryan, “Yerevan” Foundation, etc.).

Note that about 25 percent of the above-mentioned 21 billion drams, 5 billion drams, has already been returned to the state treasury as of June 26.

Increase in tax collection in 1 month, the price: 2 billion drams

During the month of May 2018, actual tax receipts exceeded the optimistic scenario by 2%. instead of the planned 109 billion drams, 111 billion drams entered the joint treasury account in May. In other words, contrary to the experts’ prediction that “a decrease in tax revenues will be observed during the transition period”, today we can state that an increase of 2 billion drams has been recorded.

Statement of the European Union

Ambassador of the European Union to Armenia Pyotr Svitalsky also made a remarkable statement.

“We see concrete evidence that the new government is determined to root out corruption,” the ambassador said, adding that the European Union supports Armenia in this matter.

It should be reminded that 5 years ago, the European Union allocated 15 million euros of monetary support to Armenia for the fight against corruption. The Prime Minister of that time, Hovik Abrahamyan, who created and headed the anti-corruption commission, did not register any tangible results.