THEIR BAD TEMPERS

The NA deputy Manouk Gasparian declared in the interview yesterday that he entered the Parliament with disgust and unpleasantness and he described the 80 % of adopted law during 5-6 months as defective. According to him the deputies who are pleasant to each other in outward appearance in the corridors in reality are disposed to each other predatorily and gossip "under walls". Manouk Gasparian is sure that the existance of press restrains them.

THEY CAN WHEN THEY WANT

Do you see how clear everything was? It was enough to gather the heads of Tax and Customs services at the President Robert Kocharian's and to order to gather all kind of taxes and tributes and here a tremendous result. The officials of both Tax and Customs services began committing the President's order in such zealous way that detected 53 incidents of smuggling instead of 36 of the last year. As it was found out the Customs officials sent more than 3 000 000 $ to the budget while it was 100000 $ last year. As regards to tax tributes the officials did their best to get more than 28,8 million Drams surpassing the officially projected 19,8 million Drams. We may conclude from this that people can if they want, or rather when the leadership orders. It's a pity that the leadership was suspecting for a long time till it managed to guess that the officials of Tax and Customs wouldn't do their obligations till the appropriate permission from the ruling clique.
That's interesting whether the leadership knows how those fantastic sums were gathered. If it doesn't know it can ask to the persons engaged in small and big business from whom the tax collectors got down payments just in the first three months. But if that money was taken advanced the source will reduce in next months. Perhaps the Customs officials did the same way: to prove their servility to the leadership acted to the detriment of their pocket: the money that were in their pockets in the past was sent to the budget. In this case it's all the same for the smugglers who to bribe to - the State or the Customs officials. But it is difficult to say if the Customs officials are ready to deprive themselves of indirect incomes and live exclusively by salary. So there isn't any guarantee that the Tax and Customs services will achieve the project of the Government and will collect 620$ million in 2005. If only Robert Kocharian doesn't gather the responsibilities of these departments and doesn't order to collect the necessary sums. But judging from all these it is obvious that they didn't have enough bravery to turn to the oligarchs. And they were right, as they didn't want to threaten their lives.