Today, in his year-end press conference, the ANC faction Secretary, Aram Manukyan, speaking about the red lines and the pension fund and the cameras installed to fix the traffic violations, as three out of 13 top failures in 2013 by the authorities of Armenia, noticed that among all of these cases, the greatest dissatisfaction is that the money collected goes to the pockets of the private sector, and the public trusts the state more than the private sector.” To the question of Aravot of how it is correct that the representative of the ANC, a political power pursuing liberal values, is speaking against private companies, Aram Manukyan replied, “Naturally, I am 100% in favor of the private sector; however, there is one but. Pensions, according to the Constitution, are monopoly of state strategy.
Like the public education. I am in favor of state monopoly in public education. This does not mean that private schools might not exist; however, implementation of a public education policy is the monopoly of the state. This completely fits into liberalism. The same for the pension. Pension strategy and policy is a state monopoly, the government monopoly. If the government takes on the strategy for organizing, possession, and control, it may also involve private institutions. It is acceptable. I am in favor for reforms from A to Z. Reform is right, but it should pass a state licensing, a state control, and be not mandatory, but voluntary, and then pass to the private sector, part by part, to avoid risks. Now, all this money must go to private institutions, which are entitled to take them out, and over which there are control mechanisms.” To our observation that the reform executors are explaining the fact of taking the money out that Armenia’s economy, simply, does not have the capacity to absorb that much money at once: there is no production, factories, to which these funds would be invested, and to have these funds bring profit, it is necessary to invest them in foreign companies for the purpose of increasing the pension of our retired in the future, Mr. Manukyan said, “These private companies have emerged a few weeks before the enforcement of the law, and this is the very reason for the lack of confidence. Any person who has to pay money to a structure, he/she should know a lot about this structure. This structure should be transparent, and people need to know what it is, the biography of this structure should be on the table of the money-payer. Whether or not it has won the tender, and how different it is from the rest. These are all mysterious gaps that may give rise to suspicion. Otherwise, the private sector, of course, is more reliable, but it should be under control and be guaranteed.
There is also a psychological moment, it happened after the red lines and recording cameras. In my speech, I have said to the Prime Minister ‘you made a critical mistake, you brought the private pension fund, and presented immediately after the boom, which was associated with the red lines and recording cameras, which everyone knows that they are Serzh Sargsyan’s brother’s private structures. And, right after it, you are presenting the next structure, to which 270 thousand citizens immediately have to make payments from their salaries. No one would trust. And the second tactical mistake is that it was brought in immediately along with the budget, and they were doing their utmost to adopt the mandatory accumulative pension prior to the budget. I have stated and now I am saying that they are doing this not to solve the problem you said, but to solve the budget problem.” When we noticed
that pursuant to the law they do not have the right to debit the money into the budget, Mr. Manukyan mysterious smiled and said, “You are right, you are absolutely right.” Our next question referred to the cameras, they say that the taxi-drivers are fined by hundreds thousands, they have to emigrate, and you associate it with the existence of the cameras. Wouldn’t be it more correct to say that you should not violate? We all know how the taxi-drivers are driving, the disciplined driver would never be fined 400 thousand drams. Mr. Manukyan said, “We have put the problem this way, a lot of money is collected.” We noticed that it is not the matter of the cameras, rather than the size of penalties is defined by the Law on Traffic, Mr. Manukyan responded, “Well, the law is wrong, again, the penalties are defined by the National Assembly, and the penalties constitute a serious percentage of the minimum wages, we tell them to reduce, so that a person whose salary is 70 thousand drams pays not 10 thousand drams fine, but at least 5000 drams.” In addition, according to Mr. Manukyan, there are violations not related by the will of the driver, which are impossible to avoid, however, the camera is recording it.
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Our observation that relevant authorities have stressed several times that the situation is taken into account during registration of the violation, and if the driver had no alternative than to break the law to avoid the crash, no fine is imposed to them, caused laughter to Mr. Manukyan saying, “Do you believe that the camera has recorded the violation, but the drivers were not fined?” When I brought my own example that there was a time when I involuntarily broke the traffic rule and crossed the solid line to avoid the crash, and the camera has fixed it, however, I did not receive a paper for violation, Mr. Manukyan brought another example, “Most of the violations happen when crossing the “zebra” and the solid line, which happens involuntarily and often to avoid the crash, but it is a violation, and they are fined. The taxi-drivers also complained about the red line parking, that they stop at a place where stop is forbidden, or stop on the red line for a few minutes for the passenger to load some of its things, or when the passenger asks to “go in and out” for a minute, the taxi-drivers stops and is fined. I always bring this example: once in every month, a farmer is coming to Yerevan to download the pepper and go back. Downloading the pepper is taking fifteen minutes, and he can not afford to pay 2000 drams a month for stopping under the red line, he has no clue about writing sms, what he should do, he is fined. I certainly do not justify violations. I’m talking about involuntary violations. One driver says to me, “I was always parking in one place, I did not know that it is banned to park there, no one has warned me about it”, and for a month, he was constantly violating the rule, he was a little goofy driver, and he received a fine of a few hundred thousand drams, the man was saying that he was not guilty, I did not know. The poor guy said, “I am leaving the car to the taxi service, I am an emigrant.” Our interview ended with Mr. Manukyan’s following words, “I am a liberal, I agree, but I am not so liberal since it is the president’s brother’s private sector,” and he expressed doubt about this assertion, Mr. Manukyan was surprised, “Oh, in other words, do you believe that a person who is not in circles around Serzh Sargsyan may make billions in Armenia?”
Melania BARSEGHYAN
