Everyone Must Blame the Government for Their Misdeeds and Show That They Haven't Received Salaries, Says Pashinyan

In the lead-up to the active agricultural season, a question posed by Bright Armenia MP Serbukh Grigoryan regarding a planned boycott by water users' associations caught Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan off guard.

The MP stated that she has met with farmers from the Syunik region who are vocalizing irrigation issues, while the water users' association has claimed it has not received salaries and is planning to boycott.

“Water users' associations receive their salaries based on the fees they collect. In other words, there is a water user who has created an association, has elected a president, which means the water user pays the fee for that water, and the association collects the fees and receives salaries. What does it mean to say they are boycotting? I read yesterday that a number of water users' associations are facing criminal charges for accumulating an artificial debt of 1 billion drams. I don’t understand—does everyone have to throw their misdeeds and theft onto the government and show that they haven't received salaries? You haven't received them because you haven't worked,” the irate Prime Minister declared.

The government leader promised that inspections would soon be conducted in all water users' associations.

“We will be conducting inspections everywhere to find out who has been stealing, and later don’t say that you are filling all water users' associations’ jails. What kind of habit is this? They sit in their places, steal, eat, and in the end come and say they haven't received their salaries. Well, the most plundered sector is this, and we are going to follow up on this one by one,” Pashinyan noted.

If the water users' associations are facing salary issues, then, according to the Prime Minister, they are mismanaging.

The MP's other observation that farmers generally do not care about the relationship between water users' associations and the government, as farmers just want to have irrigation water, further angered the Prime Minister.

“It’s very bad that farmers don’t care. The leaders of those water users' associations are their elected heads. If that association's leader was appointed by the previous government or the Republican Party, who also went to bribe voters with water, then how did these debts accumulate? In many cases, that so-called bribe is just cash money; they say, 'Okay, we will eliminate that water debt and it'll go away.' So why don’t farmers care? We say, 'Dear farmer, the one providing you with water is that association, not the Prime Minister. It is your elected body.' Has any farmer, any consumer, gone and said, 'I have no water, your association has this much debt, how are you flying around in a Brabus?' We will go and ask them one by one,” Pashinyan concluded.