Unfortunately, sociology as a science has not yet been established in Armenia. The economics, as well. Everything in us is politicized; no one wants to hear a “dry” professional speech, neither the people nor the political forces nor moreover, the government. When there is no demand for it, this speech is not born. For example, the specialists have not explained what social and economic consequences, for instance, the electricity price rise would cause.
Suppose, the income of and Armenian family amounts to 200 thousand drams, after the increase in the tariff, the family would pay additional 5 thousand drams in average per month (again, I am saying a conventional number), so whether it would be substantial for these people. The opposition parliamentarians would make heartbreaking speeches on this, the pro-government authorities would shake their shoulders loftily, and during the street polls, people would “slam” the rich and those in power. But all these estimates would be made “by sight”, in the best case, based on the emotional perceptions, in the worst case, driven by the interests of this-or-that group.
“You robbed and these poor people should pay,” this type of exclamations although being absolutely true and add fuel to the fire, however, they are far from accurate scientific diagnosis. The latter, I visualize, as a clear and an unbiased calculation, which is possible to be done by the aforementioned purely theoretical example. What do you mean by saying “minus 5 thousand drams”? What would the family with 200 thousand drams be short of in this case?
The same sociological polls about how the people would react to this price rise: would they cope with it, or migrate, or go out to the street. Any finding of such poll would be politicized and, eventually, would not inspire any trust.
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The calculation of future steps is possible only in the case of accurate scientific approach. No convincing arguments in favor of price rise, according to my non-professional opinion, are brought. Also, no scientifically substantiated recommendations are voiced about what should be done to fundamentally solve the problems in this sector. No matter the tariff would rise or not, today’s ENA is a non-operating structure, whose management, apart from submitting claims on price rise, is not dealing with anything serious. What is, therefore, the outcome: the ENA recovery plan (if so, then what kind of plan?), bankruptcy, change of the ownership, nationalization? Preferably that in addition to absolutely fair criticism addressed to the electricity network and Nazaryan’s Committee, there would be recommendations voiced, which would be accompanied not by emotional exclamations but accurate calculations.
It is clear that any such step requires a political decision. But it should be preceded by an analysis that would be carried out by non-politicized experts.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
