A regular Cabinet meeting was held today, chaired by Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

The government passed a decision on continued reimbursement of tuition fees for one semester for the students that were involved in hostilities during the war unleashed by Azerbaijan against the Republic of Artsakh, as well as for combatants’ student children and spouses.

According to Acting Minister of Education, Science, Culture and Sports Vahram Dumanyan, 895.4 million drams have so far been allocated to some 4213 students in reimbursement of tuition fees. Today’s decision implies redistribution in the state budget by amending one of the government’s previous decisions. 586.5 million drams will go to reimburse tuition fees for 2,735 students.

“The decision provides that the total number of recipients will rise to 6948, with AMD 1,463,861.7 thousand to be provided as compensation,” the Acting Minister said.

The government made a decision proceeding from the need to subsidize interest rate on soft loans provided under the first anti-COVID measure, which envisages providing borrowers with soft loans with a view to tackling the problems caused by temporary difficulties due to the crisis. 3.3 billion drams had been envisaged to this end under the 2020 state budget bill based on the estimated number of 684 beneficiaries. The decision suggests allocating the balance of 377 million drams not spent during the year as tax-free income in the first half of the year.

The government decided to relieve Mesrop Mesropyan of the office of Kotayk Marz governor. With another decision, Aharon Sahakyan was appointed governor of Kotayk Marz of Armenia.

In conclusion, the meeting decided that the 2021 budget of the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sports should be redistributed to earmark 50,000 thousand drams to the Football Federation of Armenia in an effort to organize the national team’s training campaign for the upcoming World Cup qualifiers.