Within the scope of social support programs for the population, the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs of Armenia is not the one that determines which citizens need government support and which citizens don’t. This is what Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Zaruhi Batoyan said in response to a question from deputy of the Bright Armenia Party Srbuhi Grigoryan during a discussion on the report on implementation of the government’s 2019 Program in parliament today.

The deputy particularly criticized the ministry in regard to organizing of the distribution of assistance. “The ministry hasn’t been able to identify people so often that certain citizens have managed to benefit from three social support programs, while others haven’t been able to benefit from any program at all,” the parliamentarian said.

In response, Batoyan said the ministry is gathering totally new data through the use of various databases, including the databases of the Civil Status Acts Registration bodies, the State Revenue Committee, the State Population Register, etc. “It’s very hard to ascertain the scope of people in need of government support. Armenia hasn’t had an electronic database for years, and, of course, there may be some problems in such situations,” Batoyan said.