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A total of 4 billion 399 million 493 thousand drams have been allocated to the Armenian National Assembly to implement four programs in 2017, the parliament’s Chief of Staff, Secretary General Ara Saghatelyan said at Friday’s joint session of the parliamentary standing committees on state, legal affairs and human rights protection and on financial-credit and budgetary affairs to discuss the 2017 state budget execution.

Saghatelyan noted financial resources totalling to 53 million drams have also been allocated to the parliament from the Armenian president’s office last year.

“As a result, the parliamentary budget made up AMD 4 billion 452 million 493 thousand for 8 programs. The spendings comprised some 99 percent of the budget ,” he said.

The official detailed that 4 billion 139 million 712 thousand drams of the total budget have been spent on the program of maintaining the parliamentary staff and MPs, adding the staff’s spendings have cut down by some 350 million drams from 2016 due to the reduction of 26 MPs, 26 aids and 26 staff members. 

Saghatelyan added overall 225,000 drams was spent on the parliamentary staff’s trainings last year, with 37 million drams used to carry out renovation works in the parliament.

The official noted the parliament saved a total of 44 million drams to return the money to the state budget.

The chief of staff said the number of official vehicles were also reduced by 14 last year, unveiling plans to further cut them down by 7. “This whole territory is equipped with security systems and surveillance cameras. The major part of the parliamentary staff working outside is provided with identical uniforms. We have also elaborated a series of regulations that help us unify our approaches,” he added.

The parliament official pointed out the new procedure of regulating the allocation of the monthly amount of fuel for official cars, which, according to him, has led to significant savings.

Ara Saghatelyan also said the Armenian National Assembly conducted quite an effective international activity in 2017. “The parliament paid 7 officials visits to foreign states last year, with 13 visits made by foreign parliamentary delegations to Armenia,” he said.

Saghatelyan added the Armenian parliament took part in the works of a number of parliamentary organizations last year, including in one session of Inter-Parliamentary Union, 6 sessions of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, 9 sessions of CSTO Parliamentary and CIS Inter-parliamentary Assemblies, 2 sessions of the Parliamentary Assembly of La Francophonie and 4 sessions of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly.