Davit Ananyan, currently serving as President of Armenia’s State Revenue Committee, has declared AMD 23.291 million (US$48,266) in wages and other related payments for 2018.

Of interest is that AMD 14.926 million of the above amount came from remuneration above and beyond his base wage of 8.365 million drams.

Ananyan had two government jobs in 2018. He worked for five months as Armenia’s Deputy Minister of Finance before being appointed head of the State Revenue Committee (SRC) on May 18 of the same year.

Monthly wages for the post of deputy minister are set, by law, at 562,190 drams. Monthly wages for the post of SRC head are set at 793,680 drams.

The press in Armenia recently focused on the issue of year-end bonuses, some quite substantial, that were issued by certain state official, both to themselves and to their respective department employees.

Ananyan has never disclosed what he’s received as bonuses. Given the above numbers, we can only assume he received close to AMD 15 million in such bonuses and related payments. Furthermore, when officials file their financial disclosures with the State Ethics Committee, they list net, after tax amounts.

Some officials, appointed by Nikol Pashinyan after coming to power last spring, were embarrassed by the press coverage and argued that the bonuses were a tradition inherited from past governments. A few promised to return the bonuses to the state coffers.

Prime Minister Pashinyan pushed back on the criticism, arguing that the bonuses  should be considered part of wages, adding that when he assumed the post of prime minister the tradition of paying bonuses to civil servants every quarter was already established.

The main argument posed by Pashinyan in order to counter critics who say that the bonuses are exorbitant and a misuse of taxpayer money, is that the awards have already been computed as expenditures in the state budget as a component of civil service wages, and thus, some are making a mountain out of a molehill.

For total income in 2018, Ananyan declared AMD 43,161 million. After wages/payments of 23.291 million, 15 million was in the form of dividends and 4.975 million was from the sale of stock.

He also declared €12,724 in income from work related and other sources.