On 9 October, a meeting of the representatives of the Ministry of Finance and the civil society organisations took place at the RA Ministry of Finance.
The Ministry of Finance reports.
Ms Gayane Zargaryan, Head of Budget Execution Reports Department of the Ministry of Finance of Armenia, Mr. Edgar Mkrtchyan, Deputy Head of Department-Head of the Department of State Internal Financial Control Policy of the Public Finance Management Policy Department, Ms Ruzanna Gabrielyan, Acting Head of Budget Process Management Department, Mr. Hetum Hamamjyan, Head of Budget Process Coordination and Financial Planning Division of Current Expenditures of Power Bodies attended the meeting.
Representatives of civil society were Transparency International, the Armenian Lawyers’ Association and the Economic Development and Research Center non-governmental organisations were present as well.
In her opening remarks, Ms E. Mkrtchyan emphasized the importance of civil society involvement in the budget process, as well as issues related to making the simplified (citizen) version of the state budget and budget report more accessible.
Issues related to making the state budget of the Republic of Armenia and the budget report public and transparent were also discussed. It was reported that in order to make the main financial document of the country publicly available, the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Armenia has developed and published on its official website a brief guide to the State Budget of the Republic of Armenia 2019, which will be titled “Citizen’s Budget”. In addition, it has published a simplified report on the 2018 state budget.
During the meeting the representatives of the organisations presented various proposals. In particular, Hovhannes Avetisyan, public finance management expert of “Commitment to Constructive Dialogue” project of the at the Armenian Lawyers’ Association and Lusine Nalbandyan, a lawyer for the organisation, offered to present the implemented projects in the “Citizen’s Budget” section by sector, to make it clear to the public how taxpayer money is spent.
“Our objective is to serve the public, so that the public can understand the information about the state budget expenditures,” Gayane Zargaryan said. In addition to the question raised by Varuzhan Hoktanyan, representing Transparency International NGO, that it is difficult to find the Citizen’s budget and report on the website of the RA Ministry of Finance, Gayane Zargaryan answered that the issue will be resolved soon and it will be visible on the first page of the site.
During the meeting, agreement for further cooperation were reached, in particular on the basis of proposals to be made by the civil society, the simplified budget and report formats will be reviewed, increasing their applicability.
