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“An extensive legal package has been drawn up regarding the Audit Chamber, which implies major legislative and even constitutional changes. The Committee, whose scope of coordination includes the legislation on the Audit Chamber, should get acquainted with the professional opinion of all sides and present its assessment on the draft. A multi-faceted professional and legal examination should be carried out, and all details should be discussed in order to have an improved legislation. There are a lot of issues on which different departments have different arguments. “We need to find the truth within the framework of the debate, so that the deputies get complete information to make their decision regarding the future fate of the law,” Gevorg Papoyan said during the forum organized by the UNDP Modern Parliament for a Modern Armenia Project in cooperation with the RA NA Standing Committee on Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs and with the involvement of the best experts in the field, which took place on December 1 in Tsaghkadzor.

The purpose of the workshop is to present the opportunities for the development of the Audit Chamber, the main approaches of the legislative initiative, the regulations, to listen to views and proposals of the interested sides.

Deputies and experts from the Standing Committee on Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs, representatives from the Audit Chamber, the Ministries of Finance, Justice and Territorial Administration and Infrastructure, the State Revenue Committee (SRC), the Central Bank and the Budget Office.

The work on the development of the legislative package began about a year ago.

Speaking about the concept of legal improvements in the field of external state audit of the Republic of Armenia, the main principles and approaches of the legal package under discussion, the representatives of the Audit Chamber also presented the vision of the Audit Chamber regarding reforms and strategy.

“The division regulating the function of the external state audit of the Constitution was taken as a starting point. We also included our ideas in the package. In our opinion, there is a need to revise the Constitution. These revisions will make the legal framework more fundamental,” Atom Janjughazyan noted, presenting details from the legal package.

Professional opinions related to tax and banking secrecy and the possibility of their access by the Audit Chamber were presented during the discussion.

The experts in the field of law and public service of the UNDP Modern Parliament for a Modern Armenia Project Artak Asatryan and Garush Davtyan presented proposals related to the legal package on the Audit Chamber.

Levon Sahakyan, a member of the CB Board and Avag Avanesyan, the Deputy Minister of Finance, presented the positions on the legal package and the approaches and regulations in it.

“With the involvement of the interested bodies, quite interesting angles are revealed during such discussions. It is very important for us that the public is aware of the efficiency of spending public, state resources. From this point of view, it is interesting what currently prevents the Audit Chamber from performing its functions more effectively. From the viewpoint of long-term fiscal stability, it is extremely important that this function is performed effectively in order to avoid any kind of bias in our future fiscal decision-making,” Avag Avanesyan said.

Levon Sahakyan, a member of the CB Board, highly appreciated the holding of working discussions with such a culture, which helps the interested sides to express their positions freely.

“We are determined to consider the public interest and find the best solutions from this point of view, which will come from the public interest and accountability,” Levon Sahakyan noted.

The UNDP Modern Parliament for a Modern Armenia Project is funded by the Government of Sweden and is aimed at supporting the accountability, transparency and control functions of the RA National Assembly.