“Concealing their own blunders and incapability to a accomplish any serious task during the whole year 2009, the Government, in roundabout ways, revised the draft budget later adopted by the National Assembly thereby sequestering the budget post factum,” says a statement issued by the Armenian National Congress (ANC).

The ANC repeatedly warned that, amid the financial crisis, the Government’s steps will not in any way prevent the negative developments. The result of the Government’s ignoring the warnings is that, even with an unprecedented U.S. $1.5bn credit attracted, Armenia registered the largest economic decline in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) and one of the largest declines in the world.

The Government’s so-called preventive measures are actually aimed to strengthen the corrupted authorities rather than to defend state interests and accomplish urgent tasks, the ANC claims.

Under the circumstances, the Government prepared the 2010 draft budget and submitted it to Parliament, ignoring the challenges facing the country:

- the draft budget provides for a 25% decrease in revenues, whereas the authorities forecast economic growth;

- the draft budget provides for a 25% decrease in education expenditures, and a decrease of more than 22% in defense expenses, whereas the administration expenses have hardly been changed;

- as to the tax-GDP ratio, the draft budget provides for an extremely low level of taxes, which actually means that the authorities are not going to battle the shadow and corruption;

- a huge deficit, 6.5% of GDP, is budgeted;

The ANC states that the budget indicates the blunders and short-sightedness of any authorities and is actually a resignation budget. The ANC informs the public of its own program of overcoming the crisis, which it is going to present soon.