While the government is developing a policy in order to introduce certain regulations in the issue of officials’ business trip fares, some high-ranking officials keep travelling by business class tickets. Last week we spoke about the purchases of the Ministries of Nature Protection and Finance.
It turns out that the Chairman of the RA Control Chamber who is ex officio responsible for supervising the efficiency of the state budget expenditures, travels in business class. Thus, on December 7-9, Ishkhan Zakaryan was in the State of Qatar to participate in the Fifth EUROSAI-ARABOSAI Conference. As we learn from the official website of the Control Chamber, the chief supervisors discussed issues related to the control of government’s anti-crisis programs at the conference of European and Arabic supreme audit institutions which unites 72 countries in Doha.
Control Chamber’s staff has obtained Yerevan-Dubai-Doha-Dubai-Yerevan flight tickets of business class from “Armenia Travel +M” paying 1.4 million AMD (about 3000 USD).
In her interview to Iravaban.net, Mariam Zadoyan mentioned that business trips in business classes by Ishkhan Zakaryan, as well as other high-ranking officials, are not considered legislative violations as there are no legal norms regulating this field. It is the lack of regulations which leads to such a situation when the official prefers to make business trips by more expensive tickets.
To mention, Iravaban.net consistently refers to airline tickets purchasing and particularly to the issue that as a rule ministers prefer business class tickets which are at least two times more expensive than economy class tickets. Yesterday at the government’s sitting the Minister-Chief of Government Staff David Harutyunyan announced that work is being carried out in order to change the travel policy, and it is supposed that a centralized system of ticket reservations will operate since February-March of next year.
“Studying the experience of those countries, three main approaches are suggested. The main rule establishes that all officers travel in economy class. By the way, the cheapest ticket is bought which does not imply return or change of term. The flight category will change only on the basis of special permission. The second group includes ministers who are supposed to travel in economy class except the cases when the flight duration is more than 8 hours. And the third group includes National Security Council’s Members who will travel in business class,”-David Harutyunyan also mentioned that thus the possibility to buy other more expensive tickets will not be restricted but in those cases the money will not be compensated from the state budget.
Experts mentioned that this step is definitely commendable, “Some prosperous countries that do not have the socio-economic problems which occur in our
country, try as much as possible to be modest to avoid unnecessary expenditure. I hope that this institution will be introduced and thus it will make more possible to economize resources,”-said Marat Atovmyan.
According to Mariam Zadoyan, it has been long necessary to take measures towards this legislative gap, “Since the Corruption level in our country is high unlike many other countries, development of such a policy is necessary for us. By the way, the level of legal awareness is also high in developed countries: state officials often do not use means of transportation provided by the state, while in our country the most expensive flight tickets are bought if possible.”
