Loan Repayment, Donation, Vacation Abroad: what do the Deputies Spend on and how much?

From January 1, 2022, it has become mandatory for declaring officials to declare expenditure data if their lump sum value exceeds 2 million AMD or its equivalent in foreign currency, or the sum of the same type of expenditure exceeds 3 million AMD. There are deputies who have declared some expenses not exceeding the above-mentioned amount.

FIP.am has studied the annual declarations of the deputies of the National Assembly for 2021 to understand what expenses the deputies have made.

A number of NA deputies have not submitted an annual declaration for 2021 yet, so it was not possible to study their expenses. The deputies who did not submit an annual declaration for 2021 are Aram Vardevanyan, Arthur Ghazinyan, Gegham Manukyan and Aspram Krpeyan.

103 deputies of the National Assembly submitted an annual declaration for 2021, 22 of which declared expenses exceeding 2 million.

The most expenses were declared by the deputies Khachatur Sukiasyan, Gurgen Arsenyan from “Civil Contract” faction and Vahe Hakobyan and Hripsime Stambulyan from “Armenia” faction.

Khachatur Sukiasyan spent a total of 142 million 600 thousand AMD and 20 thousand USD, Gurgen Arsenyan spent ֏ 25 million and $ 73 thousand, Vahe Hakobyan – ֏ 37.6 million and € 11.38 thousand, and Hripsime Stambulyan – ֏ 77.4 million.

13 deputies from the “Civil Contract” faction, 7 from the “Armenia” bloc, and 2 from the “I have honor” bloc submitted declarations of expenses exceeding 2 million AMD. According to that, the expenses for vacation, loan repayment, real estate rent, donation are presented.

Vahe Hakobyan (֏ 32.5 million) from the “Armenia” bloc, Khachatur Sukiasyan from the “Civil Contract” faction (֏ 10 million and $ 20 thousand) and Gurgen Arsenyan ($ 25 thousand) spent the most money on vacation.

Eight of the deputies of the “Civil Contract” faction, who submitted expenses exceeding ֏ 2 million, mentioned the loan repayment as the purpose of the expense. 3 from the “Armenia” bloc mentioned the repayment of the loan as an expense, and 1 from the “I have honor” bloc.

The deputies spent money on the renovation of real estate. Thus, the deputy of the “Civil Contract” faction Gurgen Arsenyan spent 25 million AMD on the renovation of real estate, and the deputy Khachatur Sukiasyan spent 40 million drams for the same purpose.

Deputies from the “Civil Contract” faction Zaruhi Batoyan spent ֏ 965 thousand on renting movable property or real estate, and Arthur Hovhannisyan – ֏ 1․2 million. Andranik Tevanyan from the “Armenia” bloc spent ֏ 5.88 million on renting real estate or movable property. Four of the deputies of the National Assembly of the 8th convocation mentioned in their declarations that they had made a donation.

The deputies also declared other expenses. “Civil Contract” MP Khachatur Sukiasyan declared ֏ 47.6 million, stating the purpose of the epxenses as other expenses. Another CC deputy, Armen Khachatryan, declared 50 thousand USD as other expenses. Vahagn Hovakimyan from the “Civil Contract” faction declared ֏ 5 million as other expenses. “Armenia” bloc MP Elinar Vardanyan also declared ֏5 million as other expenses, another MP from the same bloc, Vahe Hakobyan, under the same line declared ֏2.565 million drams. Other expenses were also incurred by “Armenia” bloc MP Andranik Tevanyan, they amounted to 9.84 million AMD.

Gevorg Papoyan, a member of the “Civil Contract” faction, is the only MP who mentioned the amount of 165,000 AMD spent on education or training as an expense.

Shushan Stepanyan