Only 20 Million Dollars for Former Presidents: The Rejection of the Past Continues

The newspaper "Joghout" writes: "For years, there have been discussions about the inefficiency of state budget expenditures. When it came to addressing issues in the regions, like the renovation of schools or roads, previous authorities always repeated that there was no money, that they could barely manage to resolve defense issues. However, when it was about their own interests, restaurants, VIP services, hotels, and suits, everything became European and American standard, of the latest generation.

The 44-day tragic war was also a litmus test for revealing budget expenditures: At the end of December 2020, during a session of the Nagorno-Karabakh National Assembly, we learned that this small Republic of Armenia had been spending about 20 million dollars annually from its budget on former officials and presidents. This treatment, especially in Artsakh, which has a smaller population than several regions in Armenia, was, to put it mildly, unacceptable.

To help you understand and picture the magnitude of this amount, let’s make a comparison: it is about six times more than the annual budget of the Republic’s second-largest city, Gyumri, and seven to eight times more than the budget of the third city, Vanadzor. With that money, sports complexes or IT centers could have been opened in regional centers, among other things.

This is why the public rebelled and took to the streets. People were tired of the past, tired of feeling deceived, and now, according to surveys and observations, most of the opposition is viewed as the former, as leaders who do not build schools and only think of their own interests. As they say, everything is actually very simple."

For more details, refer to today’s issue of the newspaper.