After the 2018 revolution, the authorities have repeatedly declared that they will drastically reduce the number of official cars in the country. Statements were even made on reducing the number of cars of a specific state agency.
Recently, journalists asked the head of the Office of the Prime Minister, Arayik Harutyunyan, why the number of official cars in state institutions is increasing instead of decreasing. In response, Arayik Harutyunyan claimed that they upheld their promises and quoted the data on the number of official cars of the Office of the Prime Minister as an example.
“Which data do you base your claims on? I will show you the numbers of the Office of the Prime Minister now […] To give you a figure, in 2020 there were 84 cars in the Office, while currently we have 40 cars. Compared to the previous year, the number of cars decreased by 11 percent, the year before that – by 6 percent. In other words, the number of cars systematically decreased to 40 from 84,” Harutyunyan stated.
Fact Investigation Platform received the number of official vehicles of the state apparatus in recent years from the Ministry of Finance which reveals that the claims of the authorities regarding the significant reduction of official vehicles are untrue.
Specifically, instead of 902 official cars in 2018, there are 939 cars this year.
As for the cars of the Prime Minister’s Office, in the revolutionary 2018, the number of cars registered in the balance sheet of the Prime Minister’s Office technically increased from 58 to 90. This was linked to the change in the country’s governance system from presidential to parliamentary. Accordingly, in the same year, only 20 of the 67 cars of the Office of the President remained. In fact, it turns out that the number of official cars was reduced by 15 in view of that change.
The following year, in 2019, the number of 90 official cars remained the same.
In 2020, the number of official cars of the Prime Minister’s Office was reduced by almost half, from 90 to 46.
According to the response received from the Ministry of Finance, the number of official vehicles of the Office has not undergone any changes since 2020. In other words, Arayik Harutyunyan’s claim that the number of cars has been reduced from 84 to 40 is untrue.
Thus it can be stated that since the revolution in 2018, the number of official vehicles of the state apparatus not only did not decrease, but also increased, and as for the Prime Minister’s Office, their number decreased only in 2020, after which there was no change, therefore Chief of the Prime Minister’s Office Arayik Harutyunyan’s claim that the number of official vehicles of the state apparatus has decreased, and the number of official vehicles is regularly decreasing, is untrue.
Sevada Ghazaryan