At the session of 28 December, 2023, the Government adopted a decision, according to which the system of providing cash-back to pensioners from non-cash payments was revised. According to the decision, from now on, all potential beneficiary pensioners and beneficiaries of Armenia (516,000) will receive 10 percent cash-back, but not more than AMD 5,000.
The measure of public-private social interaction to provide refunds to pensioners from non-cash payments was approved by the Government Decision No. 723-L of 19 May, 2022, and the implementation procedure by the Government Decision No. 932-L of 23 June, 2022.
Until now, pensioners had the opportunity to receive a cash-back from non-cash payments if they were customers of several banks operating in the Republic of Armenia.
The CSO Anti-Corruption Coalition of Armenia had issued a statement providing the shortcomings and omissions of the decision, and the member of the Coalition “Center for Economic Rights” NGO, presented recommendations regarding the system, addressing a number of applications to the RA Prime Minister, addressed the RA Human Rights Defender with request to organize discussions on the issue of unconstitutionality of the said decisions.
“With this decision, the anti-constitutionality of its previous edition was finally eliminated, in terms of excluding discrimination and ensuring equality, which we had been talking about for 1.5 years, noting that only 4 and then 2 more bank cardholders benefit from the legal regulations of that decision, about 70-80 thousand pensioners and beneficiaries. It is noteworthy the RA Prime Minister announced at the government meeting, that they would refer to the banks that did not join this important social program of the government, to find out the reasons for their non-joining and accordingly decide on the continuation of further cooperation with them,” Mr. Movses Aristakesyan, the President of the “Center for Economic Rights” NGO said.
According to him, parallel to this problem, some of the components of the discussed decision were not resolved։
- In addition to POS terminals and bank systems, non-application of the cash-back mechanism non-cash payments with other payment systems, ArKa, etc.
- Non-payment of 10 percent cash-back for non-cash payments for essential utility-household expenses, which are part of the minimum daily expenses of a citizen of the Republic of Armenia, such as Internet services, payment of tax obligations, fines, intercom payments, etc..
“These problems need legislative regulation, about which we alerted both the RA Government and the Central Bank, and presented relevant bills on making changes in the laws, but there was still no response in today’s Government Session. We hope that these legal conflicts will be eliminated in the next 2-3 months,” Movses Aristakesyan notes.
