A regular Cabinet meeting took place today, chaired by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

Before discussing the issues on the agenda, the Prime Minister referred to the personnel changes in the state administration system. Nikol Pashinyan thanked the dismissed colleagues and wished success to the newly appointed ones. Moving on to the discussion of the agenda, the Government approved the measure and the procedure for providing social support to certain groups forcibly displaced from Nagorno Karabakh and made changes and additions to the previously adopted decision. The monthly amount of social assistance to be provided in January-March 2025 will be AMD 50,000. During these months, the range of beneficiaries will be almost the same as in 2024. From 2025 April to June inclusive, it is proposed to set the amount of social support at 40,000 drams, and at the same time, support should be addressed to the following forcibly displaced groups: children under 18 years of age or persons over 18 years of age studying in public educational institutions or pre-vocational or secondary vocational educational institutions (about 33 thousand beneficiaries), persons aged 63 and over (about 18.0 thousand beneficiaries). From 2025 July to December inclusive, support will be continued for the same groups (as in April-June) in the amount of AMD 30,000. The expenses for this purpose will amount to around 30.5 billion AMD.

Commenting on the decision, Nikol Pashinyan emphasized that quite a big support has been provided to those forcibly displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh. "With our policy, we should encourage people to think about covering their family expenses with their own work. Of course, we don't cancel the package, but we support some social groups. And we encourage people of working age to work. This fits into the logic of our strategies, which I have also talked about. Our strategy in the poverty assessment system is as follows: step by step, we should abandon the policy of providing any support to able-bodied persons, but on the other hand, we should help people with limitations to acquire work skills", said the Prime Minister, adding that work should be encouraged, because poverty can only be overcome by work.

The government made redistribution of 1 billion 670 million 974 thousand drams, which will be allocated for the proper implementation of the Government programs for the construction/ reconstruction/maintenance of 300 schools and 500 kindergartens.

The government adopted a decision by which it is planned to make redistributions and allocations for the purpose of road maintanance. The total length of the roads to be repaired is 16 km. Nikol Pashinyan referred to cases of intentional damage to repaired public roads, condemning the indifference towards such incidents. The Prime Minister emphasized the need to prevent them. The Prime Minister noted that there were cases when during the visits it was found that, for example, a citizen destroyed the newly made asphalt. The Prime Minister emphasized the role of the communities and the patrol police in preventing these phenomena, urging the police not to ignore such cases, and the communities to exercise control in their territories.