Press Review 05.28.2016

Republic Day, requirements from the government to report, poor indices in the education system, criticism of the financial and monetary policy of the authorities are the leading topics of today's press.

The official newspaper "Azerbaijan" published an editorial on the  28 May – Republic Day.

The author decided to merge into a single chain  three stages in the history of Azerbaijan: the creation of the first independent state in 1918, Heydar Aliyev’s coming to power in the Soviet Azerbaijan in 1969, and his return to power in independent Azerbaijan in 1993.

Another step is the government of Ilham Aliyev,  what according to the author,  has become a logical continuation of the events that started in the beginning of the last century. The opposition newspaper "Azadlig" published an article entitled: "When will the government give a report?", dedicated to the situation in the financial sphere. The reason was the demand of the authorities to political parties to report on  their financial position.  The authorities are trying to blame the opposition in obtaining external funding and using it to pressure them.

However, the Azerbaijani government has not yet make a report on its activities, the expenditure of funds. So far the government has not introduced a declaration of income, although the relevant law  has been existing already since 2005.

On the one hand, the authorities are trying to find out how political parties  find means to livelihood, but the other did not want to pay taxes, to declare their income and be accountable to the peoples on the expenditure of public funds. Finally, it turns out that Ilham Aliyev has hidden billions of dollars in Panamanian offshore?

"Yeni Musavat"

The newspaper writes about the low level of education in schools. Last year more than 10,000 graduates  at entrance examinations to universities got 9-199 points. This indicates a very low quality of education.

Former Education Minister Firudin Jalilov believes this is a result of deep crisis of the entire system of training at school, the lack of real reform and government policies to increase the level of education.

"Bizim Yol"

Published an interview with an expert Oktay Hagverdiyev on monetary and financial system of the country, which is far from recovery. Over four months of this year, the economy of Azerbaijan decreased by 4.5%, indicating a continuing dependence on oil sales. A major problem for the country continues to be a banking crisis,  which can be followed by crisis in all other sectors of the economy.