August 4th is the last day of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s vacation. He spoke about his vacation during a Facebook livestream.
First, he said that he spent his time productively. He read books and familiarized himself with documents signed during the last administration in 2014. “It was a secret report and a secret document. I don’t think it would be right for me to even say the name of it. I found out about this document a few months ago, but I decided not to jump to any conclusions. I decided to take it with me on my vacation. I read it, this document is important because it gives us an entire picture of what the situation is like in our country and what it was like in the past. The problems that were listed there obviously could not be resolved within one year. This was an important document, however, and it’s also important to note the condition Armenia was in when we inherited it. It was impossible to fix within one year. What we can conclude from this document is that our country is in a state of institutional paralysis after the revolution and that the institutions in our country have completely failed. This document was written during the last years of Serzh Sargsyan’s administration. I think that the authors showed a lot of courage.”
The prime minister also noted that the document helps him to understand what problems need to be resolved in the country. “The fact remains that our country has institutional problems. There are no institutions that will resolve people’s problems, such as road work. It seems that there is money- we allocated a large amount of money this year for construction. Some might think that since there’s money, roads will be constructed with the best quality in the most appropriate manner, but everything is not as clear in reality. There were cases last year when companies won contests to complete road work, but they created roads with such bad quality that they needed to be repaired in six months. And when I read this document, I am convinced once more that the system of government in Armenia is based off corruption. This is the biggest problem our country has and why our government faces such challenges. We need to create institutions from scratch to solve these problems.”
Nikol Pashinyan also clarified what he was referring to by institutions- an independent judicial system and a state budget system. “There are systems in our country which seem to be complete, but when you start to look more deeply, you understand that we have major problems with our institutions. We need to resolve these issues strategically and without emotions.”
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Hripsime Jebejyan
