ArmInfo. The function of control over the execution of the state budget of Armenia by the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Armenia will be assigned to the State Control Service of the Republic of Armenia under the Prime Minister.
The draft amendments to the Law "On the State Control Service" and a package of related laws are being discussed at the plenary session of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia on April 18 in the first reading.
According to the head of the Service Romanos Petrosyan, if the legislative act is adopted, the unit implementing this function will be removed from the structure of the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Armenia. The implementation of this function will be carried out by a new specialized unit created specifically for these purposes within the State Control Service - the Financial and Budget Control Department. According to the speaker, these amendments will make the process of control over the state budget more effective.
The package specifies the procedure for exercising the powers of the service and the introduction of two main oversight instruments: investigations and monitoring, each of which will have clear legal instruments.
According to the current law, the Service, within the framework of state control and within the limits of its authority, conducts inspections in bodies that are not structures of the state administration system, solely for the purpose of monitoring the legality of the management of state funds. The new draft excludes these bodies from the scope of the supervisory powers of the State Control Service. Thus, the entire volume of control instruments implemented by the Service will concern only state administration bodies and institutions subordinate to them. The Prime Minister's office is also considered as a supervised object in terms of monitoring the legality of the management of state funds. The offices of regional governors are also considered as an object of supervision.
In accordance with the current legislation, the Service conducts research in local government bodies to assess the reliability of information used as a basis for the provision of state funds. According to the new regulation, the Service employees will also monitor the legality of the management of financial resources provided to communities from the state budget. This will concern exclusively the legality of the management of these resources. According to Petrosyan, the authority to manage these resources, including their expenditure, as well as control over their use, are exclusively within the competence of local government bodies.
Within the scope of the Service's powers, in the context of supervising compliance with the requirements of legislation governing procurement processes in institutions subordinate to the public administration system, there will also be ongoing monitoring of public procurement processes carried out in institutions subordinate to local government bodies in order to control their compliance with current legislation. These functions will be carried out solely for the purpose of monitoring legality, without violating the autonomy of local government bodies.
The following envisaged regulation concerns legislative guarantees to prevent obstruction of activities in the exercise of the Service's supervisory powers. The draft also regulates the procedure for obtaining and processing individual confidential data that are strictly necessary for the normal and effective functioning of the structure.
