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At February 3 sitting, continuing the debate of the legislative package on Making Amendments and Addenda to the law On Taxes, on Making Amendments and Addenda to the law On RA Budget System and on Making Amendments and Addenda to the law On Local Self-Government, the view of the head committee was submitted to the deputies. The Chairman of the NA on Territorial Management and Local Self-Government Affairs Mr. Hovhannes Margaryan presented the concerns that were voiced during the debates in the committee. The chairman of the head committee presented that the draft laws were positively assessed with reservation to review them and eliminate the existing gaps. The NA Speaker Mr. Hovik Abrahamyan also saw necessity of additionally debating the legislative package. Noting that there was no need of hurrying, the head of the parliament urged to debate once again the issues with political forces and in the committees, listen to the views of the representatives of the local self-government bodies. In the NA Speaker’s opinion the problem should be observed in the context of developing the local self-government system. The NA Speaker a little later informed the deputies that the government agreed to delay the voting of the package for 15 days.

Despite the introduced clarifications made by the keynote speaker the Deputy Minister of Territorial Administration and the chairman of the head committee in response to the deputies’ questions, the disputable questions were many, and 18 deputies were registered.

The deputy of ARF faction Mr. Ara Nranyan opined that the prevailing part of the taxes could be defined within the framework of the Civil Code in the legal-contractual field. The member of the RPA faction Mr. Rafik Grigoryan noticed that the heads of the communities were endowed by Constitution with the power to define taxes, and the powers with the proposed amendments became compulsory. According to the member of ARF faction Mr. Artsvik Minasyan, the legislative initiative has contradictions with the Constitution, the law On Legal Acts and NA Rules of Procedure. The deputy Mr. Samvel Balasanyan proposed not to delay the voting, but take back the package and elaborate it.

The debate of the issue will be continued at February 4 sitting.

The last part of the Wednesday sitting by the procedure of the defined NA Rules Procedure, was allotted to the question and answer session between the deputies and members of the government.