Thursday,
Armenian Tax Agency Denies Huge Bonuses To Senior Staff
• Nane Sahakian
Armenia - Davit Ananian, head of the State Revenue Committee, speaks to
reporters in Yerevan, 25 October 2018.
Armenia’s State Revenue Committee (SRC) on Thursday strongly denied a media
report that said its most-high ranking officials received huge yearend bonuses
vastly exceeding their monthly wages.
The Yerevan.Today publication claimed that the SRC head Davit Ananian and his
first deputy Rafik Mashadian were paid 8.6 million drams ($17,700) and 9.6
million drams ($20,000) respectively in bonuses late last month. Two other
senior SRC officials got roughly 6.5 million drams each, according to
Yerevan.Today.
In a statement, the SRC said that the sums are grossly exaggerated. “There are
no such amounts of bonuses in the SRC,” it said.
Ananian rejected the report as a “lie” when he spoke to reporters. “Such large
amounts are just not possible,” he said.
Ananian refused to reveal how much extra pay he and other SRC officials
received ahead of New Year’s holiday, saying that such information would
constitute a privacy violation. He said only that the largest bonus was worth
1.5 million drams.
According to government data, the average monthly salary in Armenia stood at
169,000 drams ($350) as of November 2018.
The Yerevan.Today report came amid continuing media uproar over much smaller
but still significant bonuses which three Armenian provincial governors paid
themselves and their senior staffers.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and other senior government officials have
essentially defended the payments, arguing that they have been made for many
years and have also benefited ordinary public sector employees. Pashinian also
complained on Wednesday that the government has trouble attracting skilled
professionals working for private firms because public sector salaries are too
low.
Armenian Authorities Reopen Panama Papers Probe
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia - Parliament deputy Mihran Poghosian at a session of the National
Assembly in Yerevan, 19 May 2017.
An Armenian law-enforcement agency has launched a new criminal investigation
into a former senior official who resigned in 2016 after being accused of
having secret offshore accounts exposed by the Panama Papers.
Citing the leaked documents, the Hetq.am investigative publication reported in
April 2016 that Mihran Poghosian, the then head of an Armenian state body
enforcing court rulings, controls three shadowy companies registered in Panama.
It said Poghosian has the exclusive right to manage Swiss bank accounts of two
of those firms.
After initial a denial of the report, Poghosian announced his resignation later
in April 2016. But he stopped short of admitting any wrongdoing.
The Special Investigation Service (SIS) launched a criminal investigation in
connection with the Hetq.am report shortly after the resignation. It closed the
criminal case in January 2017, saying that it found no evidence of Poghosian’s
involvement in “illegal entrepreneurial activity.”
Poghosian had close ties to then President Serzh Sarkisian and his Republican
Party of Armenia (HHK). He was elected to the former Armenian parliament on the
HHK ticket in April 2017.
A spokeswoman for the SIS, Marina Ohanjanian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian service on
Thursday that the SIS has reopened the probe. She said investigators will again
try to determine whether the once powerful official used his position to earn
and hide business revenues.
Armenian media outlets had for years accused Poghosian of having extensive
business interests. In particular, the 43-year-old was widely regarded as the
main owner of Katrin Group, a company that enjoyed a de facto monopoly on
banana imports to Armenia until last year’s “velvet revolution” that toppled
Sarkisian. He always denied owning any lucrative businesses.
Shortly after the revolution the State Revenue Committee (SRC) launched a tax
evasion inquiry into Katrin Group and three other firms linked to it. They
promptly admitted failing to pay a total of 600 million drams ($1.2 million) in
taxes, leading the SRC to stop the criminal proceedings.
The SRC reopened the probe a few weeks later, however, saying that it has
discovered evidence of greater tax evasion on the part of the four business
entities.
Bolton Voices U.S. Support For Pashinian
Armenia - U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton speaks at a news
conference in Yerevan, 25 October 2018.
The United States regards the recent parliamentary elections in Armenia as
democratic and supports Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s reform agenda, U.S.
National Security Adviser John Bolton said on Thursday.
“I called Prime Minister Pashinian of Armenia yesterday to congratulate him on
his re-appointment and applaud the Armenian people on free and fair elections
in December,” tweeted Bolton. “The U.S. supports his efforts to secure a
prosperous future for Armenia.”
Pashinian was quick to report the phone conversation with Bolton on his
Facebook page. Writing from Davos, he said they “stressed the importance of
U.S.-Armenian relations for our governments.”
Visiting Armenia in October, Bolton praised the new Armenian government’s
stated efforts to democratize the country, combat corruption and strengthen
broader rule of law. He also said Washington expects Pashinian to take
“decisive steps” towards the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict’s resolution “right
after” his widely anticipated victory in the December 9 parliamentary elections.
Bolton spoke with Pashinian by phone one day after the latter met with
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum
held in the Swiss resort town. The Armenian leader said Wednesday that he did
not discuss the Karabakh issue with U.S. President Donald Trump’s key adviser.
Trump sent a congratulatory letter to Pashinian late last week. “The United
States supports a prosperous, democratic Armenia at peace with its neighbors,”
he wrote. “Together, we can make progress on deepening trade between our
countries, strengthening global security, and combating corruption. A peaceful
solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict will help these efforts.”
During his visit to Yerevan, Bolton also stated that normalizing relations with
Azerbaijan and Turkey would enable Armenia to break “historical patterns” that
have shaped its traditional foreign policy. He further indicated that
Washington is ready to sell Yerevan U.S. weapons and thus reduce Russia’s
“excessive influence” on Armenia.
Russia condemned those remarks, accusing the U.S. of meddling in its South
Caucasus ally’s internal affairs. “We expect that the current leadership of
Armenia … will have the courage to resist the unhidden external blackmail and
pressure,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said last month.
Armenian leaders earlier played down the significance of Bolton’s statements.
European Court Reports Further Drop In Appeals From Armenia
FRANCE -- The building of the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg,
November 15, 2018
The number of appeals filed by Armenians in the European Court of Human Rights
(ECHR) continued to fall rapidly last year, the Strasbourg-based tribunal said
on Thursday.
“For Armenia, the number of new applications allocated to a judicial formation
was 167, more than a two-fold decrease as compared to 356 in 2017,” the ECHR
said in an annual report presented by its president, Guido Raimondi, at a news
conference.
The ECHR recorded 753 lawsuits from Armenia in 2016.
Armenia fell under the European court’s jurisdiction when it joined the Council
of Europe in 2001. Its government lost the first case in Strasbourg in 2007.
The ECHR has ruled against various Armenian government, judicial and
law-enforcement bodies on 94 occasions since then, costing them more than $1.2
million in damages. “The highest number of violations related to the right to a
fair trial, and right to liberty and security,” says its report.
The ECHR handed down 15 rulings against the Armenian state in 2018, up from 11
such judgments in 2017.
“By January 1, 2019, there were 1,901 cases pending for Armenia, a small
increase as compared to 1,819 in 2017. Armenia has remained in the top-ten
states by the number of pending applications,” says the report.
The large number of lawsuits reflects a lack of judicial independence and
corruption among law-enforcement officers and judges in Armenia.
The current Armenian authorities have repeatedly pledged to address the problem
since they came to power in a democratic revolution in May. Their critics
claim, however, that just like their predecessors, they pressure courts to side
with prosecutors in high-profile criminal cases. Government officials -- and
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in particular -- strongly deny this.
Press Review
“Hraparak” says that in “normal countries” bonuses paid to government officials
and other public sector employees would not be as controversial as they are in
Armenia. “But in a country where there is a lot poverty, unemployment and daily
fight for survival such an outcry is natural,” writes the paper. “And if we
recall that the ruling political force paved its way to power with the help of
these poor and unemployed people it will be even more understandable why people
[in Armenia] are outraged by those bonuses.” It says that Armenia’s current
rulers must be prepared for public scrutiny of their questionable decisions
because they had spent many years accusing their predecessors of plundering the
country.
“For any reasonable person it is obvious that there is no alternative to
negotiations in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” “Zhoghovurd” writes in a
commentary on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s latest meeting with Azerbaijani
President Ilham Aliyev. “More precisely, the alternative is war. Any meeting or
contact with Aliyev can only be beneficial for the negotiation process no
matter how informal those meetings are.” The paper argues that ceasefire
violations in the conflict zone have decreased significantly since Pashinian’s
first meeting with Aliyev held in September.
“The latest Pashinian-Aliyev meeting held in Davos lasted for one and a half
hours,” writes “Aravot.” “Of course it is only right that the leaders of
Armenia and Azerbaijan do not shun each other while attending the same
international events. But the time is now ripe for people to have a general
idea of what the two leaders and their foreign ministers talk about. At any
rate, it is better to meet and talk, even fruitlessly, than to shoot. One can
assume that the leaders and foreign ministers of the two countries talk about …
some [settlement] variants.” In this regard, the paper wonders whether
confidence-building agreements reached by Baku and Yerevan in 2016 are still in
force and whether the parties are now discussing a phased or a “package” peace
deal.
(Lilit Harutiunian)
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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