"Zhoghovurd" daily writes:
"The Minister of Finance of the Republic of Armenia, Vahe Hovhannisyan, is ignorant of the sector he manages or is lying publicly.
The point is that Hovhannisyan misrepresented some factual data regarding the RA state budget in a conversation with journalists the other day.
Minister Hovhannisyan, responding to a journalist's question whether the government will have a problem with tax collection, answered:
"When we planned the 2025 budget in 2024, we took as a basis the level of taxes collected in 2024. That is, the end of 2024 is a baseline number.
The actual numbers for 2024 were slightly different than what we wrote when planning the 2025 budget.
For this reason, the forecasts we have regarding tax revenues for 2025 will be adjusted somewhat. there will be downward predictions.
But there is good news. since we have a reserve fund for the management of this risk, we have no risks related to the implementation of the budget", said Hovhannisyan.
It should be noted that the budget deficit in 2025 will amount to 609 billion drams, and the minister does not see a problem here.
To the question whether the reserve fund was 200 billion drams based on 9 months, the minister answered: a year. "We don't have the final figures yet, we are in the process of summarizing and adjusting them. But we know that little tax collection has been done within the framework of approximately 200 billion drams."
Meanwhile, the fact is that within the limits of the total allocations of the Government's reserve fund provided by the 2025 state budget, the Government allocates a reserve of 95.4 billion drams, instead of 200 billion for the management of fiscal risks of the Government's reserve fund at the expense of funds provided for the purpose, allocations are carried out in accordance with the procedure established by the Government.
The deficit is 609 million drams, and the collected taxes are less than 200 billion drams. According to the minister, this is a risk for which there is a reserve fund, but the reserve fund is almost 8 times less than the required amount.
This is another proof that there is a lack of financial accounting experience in the Government, there is irresponsibility and poor management."
