On 9 October, a working discussion of the representatives of the Ministry of Finance and the civil society organizations, in the scope if the EU funded “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” project took place at the RA Ministry of Finance.
The meeting was aimed at the contextual discussion of the Simplified Report on the Execution of the 2018 State Budget of the Republic of Armenia, which is part of the Public Finance Management Area. During the discussion, Mr. Hovhannes Avetisyan, Public Financing Management Expert of the “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” Project of the Armenian Lawyers’ Association and Ms Lusine Nalbandyan, lawyer of the ALA, offered to present sector-by-sector the implemented programs in Citizen’s Budget section, to make understandable to the public how the money coming to the budget from taxes is spent.
Following the discussion, the Armenian Lawyers’ Association elaborated and submitted written recommendations to the Ministry of Finance, which are intended to make the budget report more comprehensible to the citizen. It was suggested to follow the principle of “value for money” when determining the content contained in the Citizen’s Budget (both planned and reporting) that is, to include mainly output indicators in the report. Specifically, submit the reports in three sections: 1) RA State Budget Revenue, 2) RA State Budget Expenditures, and 3) RA State Budget Deficit and Government Debt (Government Debt).
Deputy Minister of Finance Karen Brutyan in his response on 20.12.19 No. 01.1 / 26-1 / 21153-2019 response to the letter of the President of the Armenian Lawyers’ Association, Karen Zadoyan informed.
In response to written submissions, Deputy Minister of Finance Karen Brutyan, in the letter to Karen Zadoyan, the President of the Armenian Lawyers’ Association dated 20.12.19. # 01.1 /8-5/21137-2019 stated:
- In relation to the proposals presented by the ALA in the scope of elaboration of the Citizen’s Budget, “the RA Prime Minister’s decision to launch a budgetary process of 2021 it is envisaged expanding participatory processes in particular, conducting mandatory public debates with civil society organizations of the Republic of Armenia on budget requests to the RA Public Authorities. Notably, this change in public policy was also made on the basis of the ALA’s recommendations under the CCD Project. Details are available here.
- The aforementioned Draft also envisages submission of the RA Citizen’s Budget to the RA Ministry of Finance of the 2021 Citizen’s Budget in a separate format (format development work has started) by the RA public authorities (each on its area), and development and publicizing of Citizens’ Budget by the latter as part of the budgeting process.
Thus, we can state that within the framework of the “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” project, another successful collaboration – the area of Public Finance Management can be considered as established. As a result, due to the ALAs recommendations the contents of the Citizens’ Budget will be amended, including each state body’s own sectoral report, which also summarizes annual performance indicators.
