VIDEO: You Can't Raise Salaries and Expect the Army to Automatically Become Combat Ready, Says Aleksanyan

Attempts to increase the salaries of military personnel through qualification assessments in the armed forces do not provide a systemic solution, and we consider the issue of changing the base salary important, for which we are currently working. This was stated today by Gegham Manukyan, a member of the ‘Armenia’ faction in the National Assembly.

According to him, the decision regarding the qualification assessment of military personnel has been under discussion for a year and a half, indicating that salaries are raised based on these assessments.

“So far, 5,908 military personnel have participated in the assessment. It gives the impression that the government is raising the salaries of military personnel. Out of those 5,908, the salaries of 2,957 have not increased; they have received inadequate evaluations. It's not that they are poor soldiers, but there could be a thousand reasons why their knowledge is lacking. The assessment does not always reflect true capability,” said the opposition lawmaker.

Hakob Alakanyan, a member of the Defense and Security Commission from the ruling party, remarked that it is very concerning that a large number of military personnel have not passed the qualifications and received inadequate evaluations. “This is regrettable; it effectively means that some service members could not pass the physical training, fire training, or the relevant knowledge assessments related to their work. We currently face the challenge of informing our dear servicemen to prepare, study hard, and improve in various areas. We need to ensure that the army becomes combat-ready and that military personnel receive decent salaries. It doesn’t work that you raise salaries and the army automatically becomes combat-ready,” said Aleksanyan.

According to him, the army is in a situation where a significant number of servicemen are deemed inadequate in combat and fire preparation.