On October 12, the RA NA Budget Office together with the RA NA Standing Committee on Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs by the support of the programme Public Finance Management in the South Caucasus of the German Federal Enterprise for International Cooperation /GIZ/ organized discussion on the sphere of public finance management on the theme The Role of Parliamentary Budget Office within the Framework of Parliamentary Budget Oversight .
The RA NA deputies, the experts of the NA Budget Office and the NA Standing Committees, the RA Control Chamber, the international and non-governmental organizations and mass media took part in the event.
The Chair of the RA NA Standing Committee on Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs Gagik Minasyan, the Coordinator-Expert of the RA NA Budget Office Gagik Barseghyan, the experts of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy of the United Kingdom Chris Levick and Emil Atanasovski delivered key speeches.
Gagik Minasyan has noted that the parliamentary oversight function is distinctly affirmed by the RA Constitution, and the Budgetary Office, as in any country, including Armenia, is a powerful tool for implementing budget oversight. Speaking about the perspectives of the Parliamentary Budget Office development Gagik Minasyan has noted that the RA National Assembly Budget Office is a structure with rather modest capabilities, less financing and small number of staff members. The Office mainly submits certificates on all the problems connected with the budget and economic development. However, according to the Committee Chair, there are countries that have Budget Offices with greater opportunities and submit more certificates and analyses to the deputies and factions. Mr Minasyan noted that during the last 9 months more deputies began making use of the Budgetary Office services and that tendency will go on in future and the authorities of the Office will have the necessity to strengthen it.
Afterwards, Gagik Barseghyan presented the Parliamentary Budget Office in practice. He informed that ahead of the debate of the state draft budget for 2017 the Office had done preparatory works. They had particularly prepared information data bases on main macro-economic indices and state budget incomes, expenditures and deficit and non-financial indices of about 2 dozens of institutions for 2013-2017. Mr Barseghyan informed that in established terms the Office will end the preparation of the brief description of the state draft budget for 2017, which will be submitted to the RA NA Standing Committee on Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs.
Emil Atanasovski has noted that in his country the Office provides accessible and coordinated information to the MPs, which they can use during the debates at the Committees, as well as helps for making important decisions related to the budget. Speaking about the RA NA Budget Office, the international expert noted that the young Office should increase its capabilities and increase the employees’ number. But, taking into consideration the several months working history, Mr Atanasovski thinks that the structure provides rather big and comprehensive information to the MPs.
Chris Levick has touched upon the post-legislative oversight, talked about the National Audit Office in the United Kingdom, noting that it is an independent body and controls the work of all the state bodies. He also talked about post-legislative oversight.
The key speakers also answered the participants’ questions, which related to the independence of the Budget Office, the post-legislative oversight, the study of the MPs’ interests and demands by the Office and the deployment of the Budget Office.