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At November 2 joint sitting of the RA NA Standing Committee on Economic Affairs and on Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs, the debates on formation of the revenues designed in the RA draft law on the RA State Budget for 2022, the tax and customs policy continued.

As the RA Minister of Finance Tigran Khachatryan has informed, the it is designed to allocate 850,9mln AMD for 837,6mln AMD of the approved budget in 2021 to the Public Services Regulatory Commission (PSRC) in the coming year; the growth is 1,6%. One programme will be implemented which includes two events.

The PSRC Chairman Garegin Baghramyan informed that 89% of the allocated sum will be directed to the employees’ salary payment, and 11% will be used for the provision of the regular works of the structure. One percent of the finances, about 8,5mln AMD, according to legislation, the Committee will allocate to the NGOs being involved with the protection of the consumers’ interests and other expenditures. To the assessment of the Deputy Chair of the NA Standing Committee on Economic Affairs Babken Tunyan, the sums being allocated to the NGOs are not used so effectively. He was interested in whether those sums were not more purposeful to use with other mechanisms. Garegin Baghramyan clarified that this issue was touched upon in the previous year, and it was considered purposeful to reserve that function aimed at the protection of the consumers’ interests to the Human Rights Defender or the employees of his Office. “It was necessary to make legislative amendment for this. Initiating legislative amendments, as far as I am aware has been reserved to the Human Rights Defender,” he noted.