Of the 68.7 billion AMD (US$142.4m) budgeted for the police in Armenia last year, 47.4 billion AMD was spent on salaries, this according to Armenian Chief of Police Arman Sargsyan.

Addressing a joint session of the National Assembly’s Standing Committee on Financial-Credit and Budgetary Affairs and the Standing Committee on Defense and Security today, Sargsyan said the average salary for a police officer was around 279,000 AMD ($580) a month, up 23% from 2018.

“No police employee at the end of last year received a year-end bonus equivalent to their full wage. It was kind of revolutionary,” Sargsyan said.

According to Sargsyan, 1,280 cases of corruption were registered in the country in 2019, of which 225 involved abuse of official power and 135, official fraud.