$21.5 million to teammates for loyalty

After there was a great uproar and a wave of complaints among the public regarding the millions of drams distributed to government officials at the end of last year, the authorities decided to increase the pensions by several thousand drams before the elections to show that they do not forget the pensioners. They increased their pensions by 10,000 drams in order to give them millions more in bonuses.

It is not surprising that this time the appetite of the officials has increased.

Burying the state under debts of billions of dollars, the government has decided to give 4.6 billion drams or 12 million dollars to encourage state officials based on the performance of the second half of last year.

Let’s remind that in the case of the performance of the first semester, they were relatively more modest: they allocated 3.6 billion drams or about 9.5 million dollars. Within that amount, there were ministers who received up to 7-8 million drams or more than 20 thousand dollars. They will probably get just as much, if not more, this time. And it will turn out that in addition to high ministerial salaries and monthly bonuses, they will receive additional bonuses of the order of 40,000 dollars per year, at the expense of taxes paid by taxpayers.

They increased their pension by 10,000 drams to justify their 15-16 million bonuses. There is no question, the state’s money is very “fairly” divided. Only their bonuses will exceed today’s average pension by 300 times, and the minimum wage by 200 times.

Well, let the pensioners, the working poor, who sometimes receive wages below the minimum, get by with their several thousand drams in pensions and wages in the conditions of these widespread price increases.

Last time, Nikol Pashinyan rewarded himself with 12 million drams, which was equivalent to more than 30 thousand dollars. Most likely, he will reward him this time, probably because he closed the page of Artsakh forever, and put Armenia under the feet of Azerbaijanis and Turks.

The bonuses given for the performance of the first semester were considered too small and this time they increased by 1 billion drams.

In this way, the annual fund of officials’ incentives was increased to 8.2 billion drams. 21.5 million dollars will be paid from the state budget and taxes paid by taxpayers so that they feel good.

No matter how hard they try to present it differently, it is not difficult to understand that this is another pre-election bribe given to state officials and state system employees before the elections. Especially since it is not known for which good work they are being rewarded. There is no report or justification.

The “transparent and accountable government” does not consider it necessary to give an explanation about this, as Nikol Pashinyan says to his employer. With the employer’s money, they voluntarily distribute bonuses to themselves. And the justification presented by Tigran Khachatran, who held high positions during the previous government, then smoothly came under Nikol Pashinyan’s wing and received his share of those billions as the deputy prime minister, is that the work done by state bodies was close to the highest level.

It is not known who or how they decided this. They evaluated themselves and considered that they deserve to receive millions of bonuses. No matter that hundreds and thousands of citizens live in poverty today and cannot meet their minimum needs.

At one time, they announced that they were ready to work even without a salary for the sake of the people’s well-being, even today they are not satisfied with the high salaries and bonuses they receive. At the same time, they will receive millions of incentives.

This is a mockery for a country with almost 40 percent poverty.

For this reason, they increased their pension by 10,000 drams in order to justify the millions distributed to them at the expense of the state budget. All this cannot be called anything other than looting and embezzlement of state budget funds. The former were accused of embezzling state funds, they are engaged in open embezzlement. The state money is emptying their own pockets, dividing their teammates, carefully placed in-laws-acquaintances-friends in the state system, all those who have to go to the polling stations tomorrow and to be grateful, choose their cheerleaders.

It is clear that the distribution of 21.5 million dollars to government officials has nothing to do with the work done. Otherwise, many would not even receive a salary, let alone be rewarded. All this is pre-election bribery, which is handed out to state officials by the government’s decision and without parliament’s approval.

In the state administration apparatus and institutions, in the form of incentives, they distribute bribes, it is not enough, and they promise to distribute them to the local self-government bodies after the elections.

“We have to solve the salary problem at the local government level as well, because this is about the state and the community, we cannot tolerate this situation,” says Nikol Pashinyan in order to woo local government workers.

For so many years, he did not think about the salary of local government employees, he suddenly remembered before the elections. And in order to give all that a solid look, Minister of Territorial Administration Davit Khudatyan is in a hurry to announce that the works in this direction are in the finalization stage, and the model will be presented in the near future.

Before the elections, this is how they try to solve the issue of reproduction of the government at the expense of the budget, by bribing and making promises.

HAKOB KOCHARYAN