500 Thousand Dram Mortgage Loans are Closed, but Benefits are Received: Pashinyan

We have a report regarding 12 thousand social and family benefit recipients who should not actually receive these benefits, yet they do. So what is this report, what indicator do we understand this from? Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said this yesterday in the National Assembly, elaborating that there are individuals closing mortgage loans of 500 thousand drams per month, meaning they have purchased an apartment, and therefore, such individuals should not be receiving social benefits or family benefits, yet they still do.

According to him, these benefits are being received at the expense of those who should be receiving that money at a higher rate. However, since there is such a problem, it is not possible to increase the benefit rates. In this case, according to Pashinyan, it is necessary to improve the targeting of benefit distribution.

Speaking about poverty, the Prime Minister noted that poverty is not just a social phenomenon.

“Poverty is not only a social phenomenon but is also connected to a certain type of psychological thinking. Poverty is not solely related to economic relations. A person’s poverty is in their head. A person who has not overcome poverty here (pointing to his head) will not overcome it no matter what you do; even if you give them 100 thousand dollars every day,” Pashinyan said, quoting Hrant Matevosyan’s work, “Trees.”