Thursday, September 14 2017 14:51

ArmInfo. Farmers of Armenia will be forgiven for debts for fertilizers, seeds and diesel fuel - but only once. Relevant  instruction was announced by the Prime Minister of Armenia Karen Karapetyan on September 14 at a Government meeting.

Prime Minister reminded since 2012, under the programs of the state action in the field of agriculture, farmers are allocated fertilizers, seeds anddiesel fuel at preferential prices. In 2017, as the head of the Ministry of Agriculture Ignatiy Arakelyan noted, payment within the framework of these programs was carried out in time and there are no delays, but for 2012-2016 accumulated a lot of debts.

According to Araqelyan, in May 2017, the Ministry of Agriculture, on the instructions of the Prime Minister, applied to the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Development with a request to provide a list of non-payers for debts, where specific amounts will be fixed. On the basis of this, the head of the Ministry of Agriculture informed, the department is going to submit to the government staff a draft of a corresponding decision for the assignment of debts or the search for other ways. "While there is no corresponding list, we can not complete the work," Ignatiy Arakelyan stated.

According to Karen Karapetyan, the government decided to cede debts to farmers for debts for 2012 - 2016 and start relations with the villagers from scratch. "The practice of 2017 shows that the process can be organized in a way that does not accumulate debts," he said. In this regard, the prime minister instructed the governors of the provinces to compile the final lists of debtors within a month's time and submit them to the Ministry of Territorial Administration and Development. After that, the Ministry of Agriculture will sum up the results and submit proposals on mechanisms for writing off debts within a week. Henceforth, as Karapetyan stated, the government will strictly follow the process and without intermediaries - directly with the addressee. "The mechanism for writing off old debts will not become a tradition, we agree on new rules of the game and move forward," the prime minister said.

Meanwhile, as the Minister of Territorial Administration and Development David Lokyan noted, not all village headmen appropriately distributed seeds to farmers, or collected the amount, but it did not reach its destination. "The problem is also that some debtors left the country, because of this we have a shortage of 12%," Lokyan said. "These elderly people in the localities? Well, everything, get them," the prime minister said, urging that the new list not be very different from what was available.