Today, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan chaired a consultation, during which the report of the Public Services Regulatory Commission was presented.
Before the presentation of the report, the Prime Minister said: “This year, the terms of office of the chairmen of the Public Services Regulatory Commission and the Competition Protection Commission expire. They were elected to these positions in April 2019. You know that the chairmen of the commissions are elected by the National Assembly, while the authority to nominate candidates belongs to the Government of the Republic of Armenia.”
Nikol Pashinyan added that the purpose of the consultation is to get acquainted with the report on the activities of the chairman of the Public Services Regulatory Commission, based on the results of which a decision will be made on nominating a candidate for the chairman of the commission.
The Chairman of the Public Services Regulatory Commission, Garegin Baghramyan, presented the works performed during the reporting period in the fields under the regulation of the commission and the results of the activities: energy (electric power, water supply and gas supply systems), water, telecommunications, postal communication, railway transport, vehicles, mandatory technical inspection.
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Referring to the upcoming activities, it was presented that legislative reforms are planned. ensuring the continuity of market monitoring, improving tariff mechanisms, ensuring the continuity of the development of the electronic communication sector, implementing programs aimed at the development of the water system. Based on the report, an exchange of ideas was held, observations were presented regarding the commission’s conceptual approaches and program directions.
Commenting on the tariff policy, Garegin Baghramyan noted that according to the law, the commission must determine the tariffs if the authorized body applies with such a claim.
In this regard, the Prime Minister noted. “The tariff is what should guarantee quality to the consumer and profit to the producer. That is, if this balance is violated, then something is wrong with that tariff formula. Of course, it is clear that all this is not done in one action, but I think that these systems have been operating for quite a long time, and we must be concrete in solving this problem and formulate the problem in this concreteness.”
Turning to the issue of renewable electricity, Nikol Pashinyan emphasized that it is developing quite well in Armenia and added: “We need strategic cooperation agreements. The problem is that we produce electricity, what do we do with that electricity, store it? That storage, as said, is very expensive with today’s technology. According to this logic, it will be more efficient to produce electricity, export that electricity, accumulate the funds obtained from it and, as necessary, use the funds to meet the needs.”
The Head of the Government also referred to the quality of electricity and noted. “It is obvious that we have problems here. I want to understand why these problems are not solved and what are we planning to do to solve these problems? The first problem is the quality of the electricity supply, to be uninterrupted and the second is the quality of the supplied electricity.”
In response, the chairman of the Public Services Regulatory Commission noted that the problem has also led to quality deterioration in some places and emphasized. “It was for the violation of service quality that I said that the supplier paid 580 million to consumers. In other words, if it does not restore, for example, a group of consumers’ electricity supply within 4 hours, it automatically debits money for the next month as an advance payment. The supplier pays a fine of about 120 million AMD every year.”
In this regard, the Prime Minister emphasized. “In other words, we have launched the mechanism by which the progress of that quality should be visible by all standards.”
A detailed reference was also made to the regulations in the fields of gas supply, water supply, and telecommunications, the existing problems, and the further steps for their solution.
INFORMATION AND PUBLIC RELATIONS DEPARTMENT OF THE OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER OF THE REPUBLIC OF ARMENIA
