Municipalities, large and small, throughout Armenia spend money for garbage collection, road repair, to pay teachers, and a host of other services that they should be providing local tax payers. Some can afford to do more, while others just scrape by.

The press in Armenia has often written about the misappropriation of taxpayer funds and how various state agencies, especially at the local level, seem to have a penchant for lavish spending of scare resources on items that can be listed as non-essential.

Recently, I came across the following miscellaneous expenditures that the Kajaran town municipality (Syunik Province) is planning for 2015.

The office plans to purchase 120 New Year’s greeting cards at 1,000 AMD per card. That’s US$2.18 a card at today’s exchange rate (100 AMD= 22cents). 36 pens will be purchased at $2.62 each. 70 flower bouquets, used for weddings and funerals, are to be purchased at $32.71 apiece.

Not shown on the above list are tangerines, a staple on any Armenian holiday table along with oranges. Good tangerines average between 400-500 drams in the market but the Kajaran municipality wants to buy 8 kilos at 950 drams per.

“Someone in the town dies, so we send a flower arrangement. The cognac and fruit are for other events like weddings. Then there are all the holidays. A bottle has to be uncorked at each,” was how Vazgen Azaryan, who heads the Kajaran Municipality’s Division of Finances, explained it all to Hetq.

The towels and cutlery, according to Azaryan, are gifted to newlyweds and those recognized as the year’s best teachers.