Daily Essentials for Our Family Are Horribly Expensive – Potatoes, Cabbage. Meat Cannot Be Eaten Every Day, Says Ahazaryan

You have taken on the responsibility to reduce poverty in our country; how do you plan to do this given the inflation, especially since you reject the proposal by Agvan Vardanyan to raise salaries?

In an interview with Aravot.am, member of the National Assembly's Economic Affairs Committee, Hovik Ahazaryan, responded to this question, saying: “Inflation cannot be stopped by raising salaries; it is impossible. On the contrary, such an approach would encourage new inflation. This will undeniably lead to a new wave of inflation and therefore the goal pursued by our opposition colleague will not be achieved.”

Former RPA member Hakob Hakobyan had previously stated that inflation does not affect the poor because they do not have money to spend anyway. Moreover, they proposed solutions, saying, 'Let them eat potatoes'. Now what is your solution? Should they eat meat, potatoes, or what when everything has become expensive?

In response, Hovik Ahazaryan first justified Hakob Hakobyan: “I think Hakob Hakobyan’s response to the journalists was conditioned by an emotional background, resulting from a provocative situation created by journalists I like very much.”

Regarding the challenges faced by the poor, Ahazaryan stated that combating poverty occurs in a stable economic environment. “When the global economy is in a turbulent state due to the coronavirus, on one hand, we know that inflation is more tolerable in Armenia compared to other countries in the region, thus we should think that the right policies are being implemented. However, at this moment, we cannot combat poverty reduction because we do not have that opportunity. Taking this opportunity, I would like to point out that every country has a poverty threshold; we have one as well, and in the current turbulent economic situation, we cannot lower that threshold. Therefore, instead of allocating resources from the state budget in the way Mr. Agvan Vardanyan proposed, which will not yield benefits, a small portion of those resources could be allocated for targeted assistance to the underprivileged segments of our society until the economic situation stabilizes. Then, as we have written in our program, we will get down to increasing the minimum wage, that is, to raise the standard of living.”

To the question of whether the minimum subsistence basket is greater than the minimum wage, and how, despite presenting turbulent macroeconomic indicators, the citizens do not receive an answer about what to buy to avoid hunger while being satisfied and keeping costs low, Ahazaryan replied: “It was a very difficult question, and answering it is even more complicated. That’s why I said the government must keep in focus those targeted groups that have been more affected by this reality and provide targeted assistance.”

We clarified, in other words, benefits? But Nikol Pashinyan was against benefits, to which Hovik Ahazaryan responded: “Nikol Pashinyan was against benefits in general. Naturally, it is better for a person to work, for the state to provide employment, and not to receive benefits. This is even somewhat insulting in a way. However, in this situation, which we are in post-war and alongside the coronavirus, targeted assistance is mandatory.”

To the question of whether you cannot specify particular products that people could use that are cheap, knowing that you also trade and are a consumer, which products are cheap, he replied, “The products that are daily essentials for our family are horribly expensive today – potatoes, cabbage, etc. Meat cannot be eaten every day; that's simply not possible. If we say that meat prices haven't changed much, the prices of potatoes and other products have changed, and this significantly impacts the budgets of many families. Every family should first rearrange its financial resources within the limits of its means. I cannot say which products to use to be more efficient; each family should make sacrifices and decide for themselves.”