Pashinyan: It is important for Armenian government to provide  targeted assistance to citizens 

ArmInfo. It is important for the Armenian government that the assistance provided to citizens is targeted against the backdrop of the crisis caused by the coronavirus  pandemic. On April 6, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan said  this during online questions and answers, answering the question why  the government decided not to help all children, but only those whose  parents lost their jobs because of the coronavirus.

According to him, the logic of the government is to provide  assistance to those who really need it, there are groups of the  population, families in which children are not so much in need of  help than in others. <Our goal is to help the most needy. In  addition, the government has various assistance projects. And it  happens that members of the same family benefit from various  government assistance projects>, he said, adding that the government  has 9 such projects, however, these projects will be continued,  monitoring will be carried out and new vulnerable groups will be  identified.

He also stated that the government received information that a number  of enterprises sent employees on forced leave, without paying for it.  Pashinyan stated that data on this will be received in the second  decade of April, when the statistics of tax revenues will be  presented, and based on the analysis, the possibilities of helping  these people will be considered.

Speaking about payments for studying at universities, Pashinyan noted  that after the educational process is resumed, there is an order of  the Minister of Education not to demand payment for students for the  first two weeks, and then do it on an individual schedule for each  student. At the same time, he called on those students who have the  opportunity to transfer fees to do so, so that it would be possible  to pay salaries to lecturers.

Touching upon the issue of bonuses to high-ranking officials, the  prime minister noted that in March, officials will not receive these  bonuses by his own decision and these funds will be transferred to  the assistance fund from the coronavirus.

On remarks about whether it would be better to send these funds to  pensioners, Pashinyan noted that the annual bonus fund is 1 billion  drams and if these funds are calculated on the number of pensioners  in the republic, then the monthly allowance will be 165 drams, while  the government significantly increased the amount of pensions last  year.

At the same time, he assured that it was thanks to these bonuses that  they were able to ensure unprecedented economic performance in the  country and add salaries of 1 million, 90 thousand citizens.