ArmInfo. In 2020, almost half of state bodies and institutions in Armenia did not undergo an internal audit, which is certainly a cause for concern. On June 1, during the preliminary discussion of the annual report "On the execution of the state budget of the Republic of Armenia for 2020" in the parliament, Chairman of the Audit Chamber of the Republic Levon Yolyan stated this.
At the same time, according to him, not a single audit was conducted on the types of "information technology audit" and "performance audit". "The existing situation, on the one hand, does not correspond to the increase in the number of online functionality in a pandemic, on the other hand, to the increase in risks due to the increasing role of cybersecurity measures," he said.
At the same time, as pointed out by the head of the Audit Chamber, research in the field of program budgeting showed that 17.7% of program activities have not yet established any final or non-financial indicators, and therefore the effectiveness of these measures cannot be assessed due to the lack of their measurability.
However, as the head of the Chamber pointed out, perhaps the most significant development in the fiscal sector in 2020 is the significant increase in public debt. "The level of government debt to GDP exceeded the 60% threshold allowed by the country's fiscal rules, reaching 63.5%. In addition, according to a number of macroeconomic indicators, Armenia has moved from the group of countries with a low debt burden to the group of countries with an average debt burden," reported Yolyan. In these conditions, the Audit Chamber notes the importance of developing a program that obliges the Armenian government to return to the permissible 60% within the next 5 years.
To note, at the end of 2020, the national debt amounted to $ 7.968 billion, of which $ 7.509 billion is government debt (external debt - $ 5.593 billion, and domestic debt - $ 1.915 billion). Having started 2021 with a national debt of $ 7.968 billion, by the end of April 2021 the figure reached $ 8.772 billion, thus, in 4 months the debt increased by $ 804 million. According to the state budget for the current year, by the end of 2021, the debt of the Armenian government will approach 70% of GDP or approximately $ 9 billion.
