Former Officials Concealed Bonus Payments from the Public, Haik Marutyan

“We have come to take responsibility and move the city forward,” said Yerevan Mayor Haik Marutyan during a press briefing today, addressing comparisons that previous governments spent less on bonuses than the current administration.

“There were comparisons made by various individuals regarding the previous and current administrations. Personally, I prefer not to dwell on the working style of the former officials, but the comparison with them was a signal for us to investigate and see whether they were as transparent as claimed. Perhaps there was something we didn’t know; perhaps the revolution happened for a reason. Ultimately, it turned out that the bonuses that are usually awarded at the end of the year were actually issued throughout the year under the previous administration—approximately 287 million drams in bonuses that were concealed from the public. They were neither published nor, more interestingly, were there publications of alternative orders, which made the public information false. Had it been published, it would have been much more than the bonuses we have given,” he noted.