YEREVAN. – There was a big speculation in connection with the 2020 budget that the government paid bonuses with funds transferred to the government by the Hayastan All Armenian Fund. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated this at Thursday’s Cabinet meeting of the government of Armenia.

"The government has carried out an allocation of about 120 billion drams for the martial law-related expenditures. Of that, 52 billion drams were allocated by the Hayastan [All Armenian] Fund,” he added.

Pashinyan stated that during the 2020 budget report in the National Assembly, it shall be presented in a closed session, in detail, and line by line, on what these 120 billion drams were spent, so that this topic would be finally closed—if it is not closed yet.

He noted that from 1992 to September 2020, US$247 million were raised through the Hayastan All Armenian Fund to implement programs in Armenia and Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh). "During the [recent] 44-day [Artsakh] war, $212 million were raised; that is, more than 70% of what was raised during 28 years," Pashinyan said.

He informed that they have decided to allocate 110 billion drams to implement an infrastructure and housing program in Artsakh over the course of three years. "This will be a bigger program than all the programs implemented by the Hayastan All Armenian Fund in Artsakh; that is, in three years a bigger program will be implemented in Artsakh than in the 29 years since the day of the establishment of the Hayastan  [All Armenian] Fund," the PM stated.