What percentage of income do members of RA government receive?
It won’t be a big secret if we claimed that the main income of government members is not the salary. Our citizens will easily enumerate what businesses each of the top officials own in the country.
What the profits of our government members don’t only come from their businesses. They make income from already made money. It means they don’t put their money to sleep, but instead get interest rates for them. Our officials receive these interests from banks. And we are speaking about totally legal ways of receiving incomes. By the way, these incomes and interests are reflected in the tax returns of officials. Based on that information we are analyzing the incomes of these people. The returns were claimed in 2013 and relate to 2012 financial year (these are the freshest documents). Thus, in terms of receiving interest payments Tigran Sargsyan, Premier, occupies the first place. He had received 13,3 million AMD and 22,3 million AMD. During 2012 Sargsyan received approximately 36 million income in the form of interest rates. Having taken into account that the average interest of funds is 6-10% a year (it is less for dollar than AMD), we may assume that Sargsyan’s income was 900 thousand USD or 1,4 million. According to Sargsyan’s tax statement he had 920,8 thousand USD on his account and 12 million AMD. Most probably the Premier is quite efficiently using his funds by investing and getting interests.
The second largest “moneylender” is Aram Harutyunyan, minister of environment. In 2012 he received 27.9 million dram interest rate from deposits. In addition to this amount, he also had 21.6 income generated as payments and 15.9 as shareholder’s interest. Generally by the end of the year he received 84.5 million dram, 8,200 dollars and 643 Euro on his account. We see that the minister of environment is wealthy and keeps his money in Euro.
The third person is Diaspora Minister Hranoush Hakobyan. She has declared four types of incomes from deposits such as 297,500 drams, 540,000 drams, 748,000 drams and 694,000 drams. In total she declared 2.279 million drams.
Vache Gabriyelyan, the government’s HR manager and minister, received 759,000 drams interest rate payment for his deposits (besides his salary and other remuneration).
The fifth pace is filled by finance minister Davit Sargsyan. He wrote in his declaration that he had received interest rate payments not for a deposit but for a borrowing. The money he received was 3,678 drams, which is not significant.
For example, Arman Sahakyan, the head of the state property administration agency wrote in his declaration that in 2012 he deposited 37.6 million drams, and in the same year he received back only 18.2 million drams. However, he did not declare any income against interest rate payment. This would mean that he gave money to someone without any interest rate, which normally does not happen.
Justice minister Hrayr Tovmasyan’s declaration is very strange. In the income section he wrote that he had income of 3.7 million drams as his salary, other income of 3 million (does not specify what exactly) and 7.5 million borrowing income. Let’s pay attention to the fact that he did not write income as interest rate against borrowing, but income in the form of borrowing. This means Hrayr Tovmasyan has borrowed money. This is very strange because according to the same declaration in the beginning of the year he had 70,000 dollars and 6,750 Euros, and this amount did not change in the end of the year. Moreover, in the beginning he did not have any savings in drams but in the end of the year he declared 16.7 million (this is strange too).
The same issue of a lack of income is observed in the declaration of social affairs minister Artem Asatryan as well. In 2012 he declared his salary as his only income (4.1 million drams). However, during the year his savings on accounts grew from 3 million up to 30 million. The minister does not explain in the declaration form how his incomes increased by 27 million drams.
In this context education and science minister Armen Ashotyan is different than anybody else. He is the only minister who did not deposit any money but instead took credit from a bank. This means he did not save money but even needed money. In 2012 he took 10 million dram and 20,000 dollar credit from a bank. Maybe his friends who had savings could lend him money to help to solve his problems but probably the minister did not ask them.
The other ministers have not written anything in the section of the declaration that asks about income received as interests rates on savings or deposits. However, there are interesting facts here too.
For example, economy minister Vahram Avanesyan had been paid very well before becoming minister. He had received 9.1 million drams salary, 53.6 share in interests and more than 11 million drams as consulting fees. Maybe he is receiving similar share interest rates now too, but his salary is lower and he cannot earn on consulting.
The main source of the city construction minister of Armenia is from sales of agricultural products. In 2012 he earned 4.5 million dram salary and 20 million dram from sales of agricultural products.
Police chief Vladimir Gasparyan earned 6.3 million dram salary and 15 million drams as income from the sale of his vehicle (Mercedes-Bensz G500).
The national security council secretary Arthur Baghdasaryan received 3.8 million dram income, and 24.2 million dram compensation. However, the declaration does not specify what kind of compensation it is.
By Babken Tunyan
