A Cabinet meeting was held today, chaired by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. Before proceeding to the agenda, the situation with the spread of coronavirus was discussed. Nikol Pashinyan urged citizens to be more vigilant about the threats coming from the coronavirus: “Dear compatriots, I am asking you not to take it that easy. 80 percent of patients do not even have a fever, and in fact, we do not treat them, but we keep them in isolation since they can infect other citizens if they leave.”

Nikol Pashinyan also noted that the measures taken by the Commandant’s Office are aimed at maintaining the safety of citizens: “These extraordinary measures are not applied for political or other considerations. This is being done only for the safety of our citizens. I think we should ask our citizens to make additional efforts to maintain their own security, I once again apologize for the inconvenience.”

In this context, the Prime Minister highlighted the use of a novel instrument, which has caused a lot of talk in certain circles. “The legislation of the Republic of Armenia allows for wiretapping, monitoring and taking other operative measures in cases and in the manner prescribed by law. Consequently, the State and the Government do not need any additional instruments for this. This is a generally accepted legislative practice worldwide. Therefore, the interpretation that the amendment is actually aimed at controlling citizens is nothing but absurdity. Why should a government do so if it enjoys the unconditional support of 75-80 percent of its citizens?” Nikol Pashinyan said.

Turning to the issues on the agenda, the Government approved a ninth activity to neutralize the economic impact of the coronavirus, which is aimed at helping families with children under 18 who are facing social problems due to the spread of the coronavirus.

The beneficiaries of this event will be all families with children under 18 years of age in which one of the following circumstances exists: the parents of the child did not have a registered job as of March 12, 2020 and were not accepted for temporary or permanent work from March 12 to March 31, 2020 of the year; as of March 12, 2020, the child’s family was not included in the system of assessing family insecurity, or the indicator of family insecurity was below 28.01 points; as of March 31, 2020, the parents or one of the parents was not registered as an individual entrepreneur whose activities were not terminated as of March 31, 2020 in the manner prescribed by law.

Prime Minister Pashinyan said in this connection: “We decided that from the point of view of targeting, including ideology, it is right to address this support to children. That is, in fact, not the parents, but their children are the real beneficiaries of this program.”

The Government amended and supplemented one of its previous decisions to allow the procurement and provision of food to the Armed Forces through a prepayment process. Prime Minister Pashinyan highlighted the new army catering system, which fits well into the logic of his government’s political commitment. “We say that after sending their children to the army parents should not care about their nutrition. And we can see that the quality of food products has drastically improved in those military units where the new system has been introduced. We can also have questions on the way to creating this system. We agreed from the very outset that we were to be patient and not avoid raising and answering questions,” the Head of Government said.