Yesterday Tigran Sargsyan, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia, presented the Cabinet’s new program. Among other priorities, creation of jobs with decent salaries is pointed out, and it is stated: “In the years 2013-2017, the main goal of the Cabinet’s economic development policy will be to provide the population with decent employment, and the labor force’s broad participation in the economic growth. Therefore, continuous creation of new jobs will top the list of goals of the structural and sectoral policies from now on.”
The Cabinet’s program was strongly criticized by representatives of the opposition camp. For example, Artsvik Minasyan, a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) parliamentary group, noted that “this is one of those unique documents that is absolutely unspecific, is full of vague and unclear formulations, and is a complex of action for a country that has no future.” Gagik Minasyan, a Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) MP and the chairman of the National Assembly Fiscal, Budgetary, and Economic Issues Commission, commented on these ideas during a conversation with www.aravot.am as follows: “Those formulations are not serious. The Cabinet’s program is a political document. Its structure and depth, in which the issues are presented, corresponds to the depth and form characteristic of a political document.” In response to our question what deadlines the Cabinet’s program set and what guarantees there were that the citizen of the Republic of Armenia would earn a decent salary and life, Mr. Minasyan said: “The term is the next four years; there can be no confusion about that. The guarantee is the actions we have taken in the past five years, along with the executive. It has been the same political force, the same Cabinet; it is the most trustworthy guarantee. Yes, the Cabinet’s program is specific. It is a political document and is as specific as is required of a political document.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
