Residents' opinion was ignored during consolidation of communities - lawmaker

Residents of Berdavan community in Tavush province complain that their village was merged with Koghb village and not with Noyemberyan under the government’s program of community expansion. “Why wasn’t the decision discussed with the residents of this community? Why wasn’t a referendum held on the issue?” Armenian lawmaker Edmon Marukyan asked the question to Deputy Minister of Territorial Administration Vache Terteryan during a discussion in the National Assembly. “We organized discussions before the consolidation of the previous three communities. But this time we have not done it because under the country’s Constitution, the legislature hears the opinion of community residents through lawmakers. We have also talked to the head of the given community, trying to answer all his concerns,” Mr Terteryan said. Elinar Vardanyan, a lawmaker from the Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) asked why the government did not wait for the results of the community expansion pilot program before merging more communities. “We needed to have a sufficient number of communities to be able to make comparisons. These new communities with be merged with the previous three ones,” Vache Terteryan said. He advised Elinar Vardanyan not to fix on the fact that the program needs extensive experience for implementation.