Armenia’s State Revenue Committee (SRC) on Thursday strongly denied a media report that said its most-high ranking officials received huge yearend bonuses vastly exceeding their monthly wages.
The Yerevan.Today publication claimed that the SRC head Davit Ananian and his first deputy Rafik Mashadian were paid 8.6 million drams ($17,700) and 9.6 million drams ($20,000) respectively in bonuses late last month. Two other senior SRC officials got roughly 6.5 million drams each, according to Yerevan.Today.
In a statement, the SRC said that the sums are grossly exaggerated. “There are no such amounts of bonuses in the SRC,” it said.
Ananian rejected the report as a “lie” when he spoke to reporters. “Such large amounts are just not possible,” he said.
Ananian refused to reveal how much extra pay he and other SRC officials received ahead of New Year’s holiday, saying that such information would constitute a privacy violation. He said only that the largest bonus was worth 1.5 million drams.
According to government data, the average monthly salary in Armenia stood at 169,000 drams ($350) as of November 2018.
The Yerevan.Today report came amid continuing media uproar over much smaller but still significant bonuses which three Armenian provincial governors paid themselves and their senior staffers.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and other senior government officials have essentially defended the payments, arguing that they have been made for many years and have also benefited ordinary public sector employees. Pashinian also complained on Wednesday that the government has trouble attracting skilled professionals working for private firms because public sector salaries are too low.
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