Epress.am News from Armenia
Today, the National Assembly extraordinary session passed the government’s suggested draft law on “Social Support for Border Communities.” The law was unanimously passed with a 100 MPs voting yes.
The government’s draft law was given approval during Saturday’s extraordinary session. The bill specifically defined that border village communities registered residents' and border communities permanent residents' consumed natural gas, electricity, and irrigated water fees will be partially subsidized by the Armenian budget.
Another point in the law includes the subsidization of specific border community residents' land tax and real estate tax expenses, as well as residents left homeless due to Azerbaijani attacks on border communities will receive homes in equivalent value to their older ones, located in the same community, within a one month period.
About a month ago, a law passed (97 for, 3 against) for exempting taxes for border village community businesses, which led to an argument between HAK faction MP Nikol Pashinyan and Republican MP Vardan Ayvazyan.
Pashinyan had stated that the law for for the benefit of businessmen and not a genuine approach in helping residents.
He had also suggested a law in regards to border communities which was rejected by the National Assembly due to the lack of preliminary government discussion on the matter. The content of the current law is very similar to that of Pashinyan’s suggested bill, presented last September.