Armenian National Assembly reduces car fleet by 24%, exempting Speaker’s BMW

In a significant move towards streamlining government expenses, Armenia’s National Assembly has reduced its car fleet by 24%, from 42 to 32 vehicles in 2024.

The decision contradicts Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's broader goal of reducing the number of official cars across state structures by up to 90%, with only one car to remain in each ministry and department by the end of 2023.

According to the Armenian Parliament’s press service, while the fleet reduction was substantial, the BMW 750Li xDrive LCI, valued at AMD 90 million ($226,900), and assigned to the Parliament Speaker, was exempted from the cuts, Caliber.Az reports via Armenian media.

The fleet now consists of various vehicles, including Toyota Prado, Toyota Camry, Nissan Sentra, Renault Dokker, and BMW. Notably, the fleet does not include any electric vehicles.

Other government departments have seen even deeper cuts. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for instance, has reduced its fleet from 15 vehicles to just one, while the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Environment will both make do with only one vehicle each, down from eight and 14 vehicles, respectively. Several ministries are still in the process of implementing these reductions.

Prime Minister Pashinyan, explaining his decision, stated that he personally identified and removed "superfluous cars" from the government’s fleet. He acknowledged that the changes might cause temporary organizational challenges but emphasized that the responsibility for such disruptions lay with those who had failed to act on his previous instructions.

In another cost-cutting measure, dozens of employees of the Armenian Defense Ministry will no longer have access to free transportation, as 12 PAZ buses used to ferry them from the outskirts and suburbs of Yerevan have been cut. Pashinyan had previously stated that transportation reductions would be carried out in an “axe” manner to ensure efficiency.

By Tamilla Hasanova