A few days ago, the Armenian government received another donation from one of the big businessmen. The MTS company, which has a new owner, donated 20 percent of the shares to the government. An example of this was created on the occasion of the Zangezur copper-molybdenum combine, whose new owner donated a 12.5 percent share to the government in 2021. There is an agreement about such a donation regarding the Amulsar mine project, which will be implemented by the Lydian company.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced at the government session last week that the government should push large companies operating in a number of sectors into the open joint stock company regime, otherwise these companies will have to pay different tax rates. Basically, Nikol Pashinyan is changing the rules of the game for large companies in at least a number of fields, declaring that the “gifts” go not to him or any of his relatives, but to the “people’s pocket” – the budget. This is a controversial situation to say the least. On the one hand, the state actually becomes a “stakeholder” in the business, and although the owner of the state, the people, is apparently the owner of the stake, no one has an idea of what the state budget is like and what the “culture” of its distribution is like.
At the same time, how will big business accept the new rule of the game, how will it respond to the state’s share ambitions? Of course, it should be noted here that the situation should not be subjected to a so-called classical economic measurement, because the geopolitical and economic-political factors of Armenia are somewhat far from the classical measurements due to a number of circumstances. Therefore, the government and the business can come to certain agreements on “extraordinary” rules, if there is a principled agreement on maintaining the agreed rules. Of course, we can talk about special, large areas of strategic significance. In that sense, the main question is, where will the profit from the state share go de facto?
De jure, it will be directed to the budget, and de facto, to “snoopdog”? This is the main issue on which, in addition to its agreements with business, the government should come to an agreement with the public on an iron and transparent accountability mechanism, so that both de jure and de facto it turns out that this money will really go to the people’s pockets, and not or will it be a camouflage net? Only then will it be possible to assess the rules of the game as public benefit and pro-state.
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