YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 25, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan says it’s normal that people in Armenia are waiting for quick changes after the 2018 revolution. Pashinyan states that these quick changes have already started, but it doesn’t mean that all changes have taken place.

During the meeting with the Armenian community of New York Pashinyan said today there is an opportunity to build roads in Armenia in such a scale with the budgetary resources of the country which took place last time when Kirk Kerkorian donated 100 million USD to Armenia.

“Based on the results of the first half of this year, we have surpassed Armenia’s state budget by nearly 120-125 million USD. That is approximately as much as the Lincy Foundation gave to Armenia”, the PM said.

The PM commented on the question “why the money stolen from the people is not being returned”. “Look, for instance, former minister of nature protection Aram Harutyunyan, who is charged for taking large bribe, by using his MP status and the fact that the RPA didn’t vote in favor of his arrest for the first time, left Armenia. Mihran Poghosyan, who is also charged for abuse, is not in Armenia and is wanted. Levon Sargsyan, who is also charged over the North-South project, is not in Armenia as well and is wanted. Manvel Grigoryan is in jail, Gagik Khachatryan and Robert Kocharyan are also in jail. But on the other hand I don’t want to hide, 4-5 months before I said also in the Parliament that I am not satisfied with the volumes of the anti-corruption fight. And this was also the reason that very significant, tangible and rooted personnel changes took place recently in the law enforcement system. There is such a trend in this system that “ok, a month, two months, three months have passed, let’s already start to reach an agreement with this person, with that, etc”. Yes, this trend exists, but I have stated that I have not agreed and will not agree with it. When I say that we have overfulfilled the budget by 120 million USD, what issues did we solve with them: today we have greatly raised the salaries of contractual servicemen and officers of our armed forces. Staring from January 1, 2019, the pensions and fees of 80.000 pensioners have increased, and will increase again from January 1, the salaries of teachers increased from September 1, and so on”, the PM said.

Pashinyan added that this year for the first time in Armenia the Central Bank bought 400 million USD from the market because there was so much dollar offer that the CBA had to buy. “Our international reserves are at the highest level at this moment. The international reserves in our country have never been greater than they are today. The talk is about the foreign currency we keep in our reserve. Over the past one and a half year more than 65.000 jobs have been registered in Armenia, this is the 10% of the labor market”, he said.

He noted that at the same time the investigators are very overloaded during the investigation of ongoing criminal cases. Pashinyan said an investigator examines at least 30-40 cases. “And of course, these criminal cases cannot be carried out quickly in the conditions of such overload. On the other hand, all these criminal cases are being carried out in the conditions of possible and impossible obstacles known to you. But this doesn’t make any change in our plans, as I said I continue stating that the money stolen from the Armenian people should be returned to them. This is the most important record”, he said.

Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan is in the United States on a working visit.

Edited and translated by Aneta Harutyunyan