Delays in Benefits: Those Who Fail to Implement Directives Will Be First to Lose Jobs, Says Pashinyan

During today’s government session, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan addressed the delays in benefits and inquired with the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs about the issue: “Have we resolved this issue?”

“Mr. Prime Minister, the delays are due to several reasons connected to technical processes, but the work on compiling the payment lists has been carried out within the specified deadlines,” said Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Zaruhi Batoyan.

“Are we guaranteed that there won’t be delays next month?” the Prime Minister asked.

“We will do everything to ensure there are none,” Batoyan noted.

The Prime Minister also questioned why they had not ensured this in advance, asking if anyone could provide an answer to the matter.

Minister of Finance Atom Janjughazyan stated that in 2017, the government made a decision to establish the procedure for using electronic signatures in public bodies.

“On October 2nd of last year, we first informed our colleagues through a circular and asked them to ensure the validity of electronic signatures; out of 10,000 users, about 3,000 had valid ones,” said Janjughazyan. According to the minister, they informed all users once again on February 2nd to ensure this by March 21st.

“In fact, those ten thousand people are public servants. Why didn’t they fulfill the directives? Ladies and gentlemen, why have your subordinates not implemented the directives?” the Prime Minister inquired, continuing, “When we say there are a lot of idle people in the public administration system, you say that is not the case,” Pashinyan expressed with irritation.

He called for the list of officials who have not fulfilled the directives to be published, even if it consists of several thousand who have caused people to not receive their benefits on time.

“When we address the issue of optimizing the system in the near future, those individuals should be among the first to be laid off as a result of that optimization,” Nikol Pashinyan stated.