Today Vahan Tumasyan, the head of Shirak Center, an NGO dealing with issues of homeless and socially unprotected people, talking about the proposal of the government to raise the minimum wage by 2500 AMD – i.e. make it 35000 AMD – expressed the following idea, “2500 AMD is not that large a sum that they make such a fuss of it, even the Minister of Finance gives explanations and expresses ideas in the National Assembly for hours. They should have done it silently, moreover, they should have raised wages by that sum every week. Frankly speaking, one cannot take a taxi for 2500 AMD, a resident of Gyumri will hardly be able to take a cab and reach Mush 2, a newly-built neighborhood, from his shelter, say, he has gotten an apartment and has a lot of problems to solve. And that increase will surely not have an impact on the resident of Gyumri. More than a half of Gyumri – 20 thousand people or 5-6 thousand families – is unemployed and their only hope is benefits and pensions for disability. Even if they raised the minimum wage by 25 thousand, these people would not be aware of that.
“Instead of speaking of 2500 AMD, that’s enough, let them speak of creating jobs, rescuing Gyumri from widespread poverty. As for what they can spend 2500 on, they can buy a stuffed bun every day for 25 days, one stuffed bun costs 100 AMD, if we exclude Saturday and Sunday, a family of 3-4 can eat one stuffed bun every day, it is still progress that the government wishes that the population has sweets.”
In our interlocutor’s opinion, the rich people in Armenia are first to benefit from social legislation, according to him, employers who hire illegal labor will benefit from this law. “They must be the happiest men and welcome this bill – if an employer hires 10 illegal
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workers, guess, he stealing 320 thousand AMD from the state every month by that, now he will steal 350 thousand, 2500 AMD will be added to what he has stolen already. And those who used to more or less show their list of employees will be compelled to increase the number of shadow employees.
“My studies have shown that all the social laws aim at solving the issues of the rich people in the country. For example, Legalization of Illegal Constructions Act – they legalize constructions that are built of stone, are surrounded with a wall etc. Can the construction of a poor man be like that? So it turns out that they needed a law quickly and it was enacted for their needs. Or, they encourage fertility, they give money for 3rd, 4th and 5th child, they should just once visit those people and realize what they are doing. People have so many debts that they are compelled to have a child to repay them, but as a result, we add to the number of begging and poor children. They are far from the people, they work only with the papers on the budget, they make the country face tough challenges with their shows and stupid decisions. If this continues, they make decisions without taking into account social reaction, they can govern Armenia from Mars, it will make no difference,” Vahan Tumasyan who visits the poor neighborhoods of Gyumri almost every day shooting videos about families who are in extremely bad condition and tries to find benefactors and rescue them from the jaws of hunger and death got angry.
