The Old School Art of Squandering the Budget: Ani Samsonyan Comments on Pashinyan's Post

Member of the National Assembly's "Enlightened Armenia" faction Ani Samsonyan addressed Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's Facebook post regarding the allocation of 48 million 900 thousand drams from the budget for placing advertisements on external billboards.

Below is the full text of the post:

"The Government of the Republic of Armenia has allocated 48 million 900 thousand drams for the external advertisement of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's post to be spread across the country. 'We have received an instruction from the Government to find a minimal number of external advertisement billboards in Armenia, and negotiate with the owners of these billboards, as they are different companies, in order to cover Armenia with this advertisement so that almost every citizen interacts with it,' said Armen Martirosyan, director of the 'Antares' publishing house.

This purchase raises fundamental concerns for me regarding both the purpose and the means. The first is the objective of external advertising. It is understood that the hope for the implementation of 80% of this Government’s program lies in changing people's mentality. At least, this is how it was presented during the discussions on the Government’s program in the National Assembly.

When I saw the external advertisement posters circulating, I involuntarily recalled Soviet propaganda posters:
Родина-мать зовет!
Наши цели ясны, задачи определены, за работу, товарищи!
Ты записался добровольцем?
Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь!

Of course, these methods of Soviet propaganda worked because people's sources of information were extremely limited, censored, and such posters effectively performed their inspirational function. But ultimately, that didn't save the Soviet Union.

Now these posters no longer work, as over time, people develop immunity to any promotional method and become indifferent. We can read the slogan 'Armenia is my homeland, the people are my family' a thousand times, but it will not change our behavior.

The second issue is that this work has been entrusted to someone, and that someone is the publisher of the Prime Minister's book. Speaking about the connection between the Prime Minister and Armen Martirosyan, the director of 'Antares' publishing house', is redundant. This task has been assigned to a company without competition. This once again proves that the culture of cronyism still exists in public procurement in the new Armenia, and this is a problem.

By the way, while discussing business competitiveness in Aragatsotn province, the Prime Minister excluded discrimination based on political views. For example, according to the 2019 budget, approximately 40 million AMD is allocated for maintaining medical equipment in hospitals and health posts. An essential expenditure for our army.

For instance, about 13 million drams and 19 million drams are spent respectively on providing round-the-clock care services for people with mental health issues and for the social-psychological rehabilitation of individuals with intellectual and physical disabilities. Necessary expenditures to fulfill the state's positive obligations.

And approximately 49 million for spreading slogans when, in today's information age, more creative and cost-effective solutions could be found rather than engaging in outdated Soviet propaganda. This reminds me of the 5 million drams spent on washing carpets during Vardavar, where under the guise of poorly propagating Armenian carpets and traditions, certain unknown, newly registered companies profited."

The MP also posted a photo, which we present below.