YEREVAN. - Denmark indeed has less official cars than Armenia, but it [also] provides more social guarantees to the officials, Armenia’s Finance Minister Gagik Khachatryan said in the parliament today in the follow-up to the debates on the Draft State Budget for 2016.

The number of cars reduces in Denmark, since this country wants to focus on caring about the environment but this doesn’t mean that the expenses on the government staff are less there, the Minister said.  

Denmark makes deductions from the income tax for the journey from home to work in the radius of up to 24 km. And if the distance is greater, compensations are applied. In fact, the deductions and compensations are applied not only to the officials, Khachatryan said.

Referring to Georgia, he said that over two years that country allocated 11,2 mln laris or approximately 5 mln dollars for the new official cars, let alone the former  car-fleet.

In Georgia not only Ministers and their deputies, but also department heads have cars.  Besides, ordinary officials have official cars for common use, the Minister said.

“I’m referring to this in such detail to show that none of us wastes budgetary means. We try to make the expenses reasonable and reduce them where possible,” he said.