154 Thousand Dollars for Bonuses of the Previous National Assembly

The deputies of the 6th convocation of the National Assembly and the leadership of its staff have also received bonuses. This information was disclosed by a written response from the National Assembly's public relations and media department regarding a query sent by Factor.am.

"In response to your inquiries, we inform you that the deputies of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia and all staff members received a bonus equivalent to one monthly salary in December 2018," the letter states.

It should be noted that this concerns the previous convocation of the parliament, during which the Republican Party of Armenia held the majority. The Speaker of the National Assembly was Ara Babloyan, and the Vice Speakers were Eduard Sharmazanov, Arpine Hovhannisyan, and Mikayel Melkumyan.

It is also worth mentioning that the powers of the 6th convocation of the National Assembly were terminated on January 14, 2019, when the 7th convocation of the parliament commenced its work. Regarding the bonuses, it turns out that each deputy or employee received a bonus amounting to 100% of their salary. Specifically, the bonus for the former Speaker of the National Assembly was 1 million 190 thousand 520 drams.

The bonuses for the Vice Speakers were 925 thousand 960 drams, while the total bonus for the four Vice Speakers amounted to 3 million 700 thousand drams. The bonuses for the chairpersons of the 9 committees of the National Assembly summed up to 7 million 680 thousand drams. The head of the National Assembly staff and each deputy received 661 thousand drams.

The bonus for the first deputy head of the staff of the National Assembly was 595 thousand drams, while the other two deputies together received 1 million 58 thousand drams. Excluding the Speaker of the National Assembly, his deputies, and the chairpersons of the committees, the total bonus for the remaining 91 deputies was 60 million drams. When adding the bonuses of the National Assembly staff mentioned above, the total reaches 75 million drams. This is equivalent to 154 thousand US dollars.

It should be noted that in recent days, the amount of bonuses given to employees of state structures has been widely discussed. In particular, it has already been reported that the bonuses for employees of the Yerevan City Hall amounted to 474 million drams or 947 thousand US dollars. Today, the Chairman of the State Revenue Committee, Davit Ananyan, announced that his bonus for 8 months is 14 million drams. Earlier, the head of the Central Bank, Smbat Gogyan, had informed Factor.am that he had awarded his deputy 180% of their salary as a bonus.