Civilnet
The civic initiative Dem.Am or “I’m Against It” that has been on the forefront of protesting the controversial new pension system in the country organized a demonstration in front of the Ministry of Finance on March 7. Participants were holding signs that read, “We’re Against the Emigration of Money” and “We are the Owners of Our Salaries.” They were whistling and chanting “No to Robbery,” and “We’re Against It.”
There was a heavy police presence at the demonstration. Security forces prevented the protesters from approaching the Ministry of Finance building. Protesters were also throwing coins at the ministry chanting “Shame on You.”
Protesters demanded that Minister of Finance Davit Sargsyan meet with them. They were chanting, “Come down Davo.” However, Armen Jhangiryan the Head of the Division of Financial Market Development and Methodology was the one who approached the protesters. He suggested they send their complaints in writing to the ministry or have a delegation of 5-10 people meet with the Minister. However, the protesters declined the offer and kept demanding that the minister come down to them. Karen Tamazyan, the minister’s chief-of-staff also tried to mediate with the protesters and made similar suggestions as Jhangiryan. The protesters refused once again saying that either all the representatives of the protest go up or nobody at all.
As tensions rose during the protest, scuffles broke out between police and protesters. Three citizens were arrested and taken to Kentron Police Station. The demonstrators marched to the police station to demand their release. One of the participants told CivilNet, “We are all soldiers struggling for our country, no one has the right to limit the people’s movement and from carrying out a peaceful protest.”
Near the police station a large number of security forces surrounded the demonstrators and would not let them near the building. According to Civilnet’s journalist on the scene, the police were also preventing reporters from doing their job.
Earlier that day, the civic initiative came out with a statement, “The Ministry of Finance has been pressuring and forcing employers and accountants to complete transfers to the pension bridge accounts and forcing workers to pick a pension fund and administrator. This has become unacceptable. The Ministry has been exceeding its scope of authority by pressure, spreading misinformation and terror. The Ministry is directly extorting mandatory accumulative pension payments. Hence as citizens of the Republic of Armenia we should not allow the Ministry of Finance to exceed any jurisdiction.”
The Constitutional Court has suspended Article 76 and 86.3 of the law on “Accumulative Pensions” until March 28, 2014. Those citizens born after 1974 will be incorporated into the new pension plan. Those who are to be part of the new pension plan will have to accumulate their pension in a pension fund which will be managed through designated fund administrators.
Those citizens who earn a salary less than 500,000 AMD will accumulate their pension with a 5 percent deduction of their salary. The government in turn will transfer another five percent. For those citizens who earn a salary more than 500,000 AMD the government will transfer a maximum of 25,000 AMD, if there’s a shortfall to reach the 5 percent threshold, then the employee’s wage will be further deducted. When the government and the citizens who earn more than 500,000 AMD accumulate an amount that constitutes 10% of the citizen’s salary then that will be how much he/she will accumulate in his/her pension fund every month.
Protests were organized on February 10 against the mandatory pension wage deductions by workers of the South Caucasus Railway and of the Alexander Spendiaryan National Opera and Ballet Academy Theater. On February 12 protests were organized by employees of the Karen Demirchyan Yerevan Metropolitan Subway System, on February 13 by the employees of the Electric Networks of Armenia and on February 19 by the employees of the Metsamor Nuclear Power Plant.
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