With the mandatory individual pension system now in operation in Armenia, the country’s State Revenue Committee (SRC) is offering courses to acquaint mostly uniformed citizens on its intricacies.

There’s one catch – the course cost 12,000 AMD ($30 U.S.)

While Armenia’s Constitutional Court is reviewing the constitutionality of the system itself, the SRC, through its affiliated Education Center SNPO (state non-profit organization), is launching the courses and demanding that citizens pay for them.

Hetq spoke to Education Center Director Mher Sahakyan as to why they were charging citizens who wished to learn about the pension system.

According to Sahakyan, the main function of the Center is to retrain employees of the SRC regarding the ins and outs of the new pension system. They won’t have to pay anything. The 12,000 AMD fee is for others, he said, arguing that the Center doesn’t have the resources to cover the costs itself.

When asked if a SNPO can legally engage in a revenue generating operation like this, Sahakyan pointed to a decision adopted by SRC President Gagik Khachatryan. “We have that right,” Sahakyan claimed, referring to the RA “Law on SNPO’s”.

According to Article 6, Part 1 of this law, “A state agency can only engage in entrepreneurial activities only in cases and forms directly predetermined by law or the decision of the founder.”

Courses on the mandatory pension system have been organized according to the following types of entrepreneurial activity as noted in the SNPO’s charter: 1) organization of supplemental education, 2) activities of education centers, organization of courses.

However, the necessity of this entrepreneurial activity by the SNPO hasn’t been established, due to the fact that another government established organization, the "Pension System Awareness Center Foundation" is obligated to offer courses free of charge to citizens.

As a result, we have two state agencies providing information courses to citizens: one is obligated to offer free courses, while the other sees no problem in charging 12,000 AMD.

Education Center Director Sahakyan says that its courses are more professionally focused and differ from the Foundation’s offerings.

However, according to the Foundation’s charter, it too must provide “all manner of information to citizens regarding the new pension system”, which we can only assume to mean professional expertise as well.

The Foundation’s charter states that the aim and object of its activity is “to provide support for the effective realization of pension reforms.”

A sub-section explicitly states: “To provide professional and consultative support regarding pension reforms.”

So it turns out that the Foundation is also mandated to provide general and professional level support regarding the new pension system, which seems to contradict Education Center Director Sahakyan’s claim that the two agencies have different agendas and functions.

I should also add here that on Dec. 20, 2013 Armenia’s Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs signed two agreements with the USAID (United States Agency for International Development) allowing for a $414,000 U.S. grant to reform Armenia’s pension system and to increase public awareness about it. $149,000 of the total grant is specifically earmarked to raise awareness on pension reform.

All this begs the question as to why the SRC felt the need to establish its own set of pension courses, and, on top of it all, to charge 12,000 AMD.

The USAID is handing millions over to the government for the exact same purpose.

Director Sahakyan has an explanation for this conundrum as well. The 12,000 will go to pay for coffee breaks for the professional instructors, to pay for course materials and their salaries.

Sahakyan says that so far eight people have signed up for the course.