Thursday, April 18 2019 11:14

ArmInfo. "We all wear our costumes, and we don't intend to try on Serzh Sargsyan's  suits  on ourselves," Member of the National Assembly of Armenia Vahagn  Hovakimyan said at a parliamentary meeting on April 18, speaking  about the proposals of the " Bright Armenia" opposition faction on  the draft of amendments to the Law on structure and activities of  government.  

To recall, yesterday the head of Bright Armenia faction Edmon  Marukyan during the discussion on the amendments to that law  mentioned in particular :"It is known that the current system of  state administration is called" Serzh Sargsyan's suit. "This is a  well-known fact. That is, Serzh Sargsyan's costume, a super- premier  system. Now you have developed a draft by which you propose to do the  following: remove two buttons from the costume and say: wear this  suit, this is already a good suit, "he said, taking off his suit and  pointing at the buttons, pointing particularly at the proposals to  give the Police and the National Security Service the status of  ministries.

Meanwhile, as Vahagn Hovakimyan stated today, there is no need for  such comparisons. As for the status of the Police and the National  Security Service, then the country's parliament with 2/3 of votes has  the opportunity to make changes to the constitutional law "On the  Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly", and thus, by solving  the existing problem. This decision will allow both the head of the  police and the head of the National Security Service to take part in  questions and answers to the government.  In turn, the RA Minister of  Justice Artak Zeynalyan invited the Bright Armenia faction to submit  a draft of their proposal in order to compare it with the government  draft. "You say that the state apparatus is bloated, we say the same  thing, but you offer 14 ministries, while we propose to leave 12. You  don't have research results on the feasibility of your proposals. You  say that we took Serzh Sargsyan's costume and cut off two buttons?  But your proposals are based on ours; in fact, you took our costume,  and cut off two buttons with it, "the head of the Ministry of Justice  said.

Meanwhile, as Artak Zeynalyan continued, the government's proposals  are reduced to optimizing the public administration system in order  with few resources to achieve more tangible results. Nevertheless, as  the minister stated, the opposition's proposals also have right to be  applied, and can also lead to results. In particular, one of the  proposals of the faction to abandon closed government meetings will  be considered in the period between the first and second readings.

The discussion process itself caused resentment of the NA MP from the  Prosperous Armenia faction Gevorg Petrosyan, who called to talk more  about the draft law itself, and not about costumes, socks or shoes.  "Let's talk about the government program, its structure, social and  economic consequences of this policy, and not to make a show with  costumes and mathematical calculations about how many deputies and  from which faction they performed on the submitted draft law, "said  the lawmaker.

Another MP from the Prosperous Armenia faction Mikael Melkumyan  stated that with such a structure of the government and such a  program it is impossible to carry out an economic revolution in the  country. He stated that the faction would vote against the draft law.