Nearly 20 millionaires in Armenia's National Assembly

/AzerNews/

By Mushvig Mehdiyev

The latest income and property declarations submitted by members of the legislative body in Armenia have revealed that nearly 20 members of the National Assembly are millionaires, local 168 Zham newspaper reported.

Nine of the fortune hunter MPs are reportedly members of the ruling Republican Party's parliamentary faction. Another nine wealthy legislators represent the opposition Prosperous Armenia party. Only one member of parliament, Arayik Grigoryan, appears to be non-partisan.

Armenia's constitution unambiguously prohibits the MPs and civil servants to be engaged in business activities. But the state officials in the post-Soviet country have violated the law with their overt and covert fortunes.

The declarations disclosed that Armenian MPs owned about $172,7 million altogether as of late 2013. However, the current figure claims that the legislators' total income increased by $62.4 million or 40 percent to reach $235 million since last year.

Local media noted that the Prosperous Armenia is the richest parliamentary faction with around $163.6 million total income of its lawmakers. The party's Leader, Gagik Tsarukyan, one of the wealthiest oligarchs in Armenia, is the National Assembly's top richest lawmaker with an income of about $134.2 million.

Online map Wikimapia posted the location of a huge mansion which reportedly belongs to Tsarukyan, a rich civil servant with the pseudonym of "Dodi Gogo". The enormous asset on the Sevan-Yerevan highway hosts exotic plants and animals, even lions in its yard. Multi Group, a company of over 40 small and large businesses is also owned by Tsarukyan.

Armenia's another MP Samvel Aleksanyan is also ranked among the richest legislators in the poor country of the Caucasus. Hetq, a partner of the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project, reported Aleksanyan's ownership of Yerevan City supermarkets chain in the capital city. Moreover, the Aleks Grig company, which controls 99 percent of the sugar imports to Armenia belongs to the fortune hunter MP.

The latest reports in Armenian media revealed that not only the members of parliament but also its leadership possess huge fortunes. Parliament's Deputy Speaker, Armine Nagdalyan is reportedly the richest woman civil servant in the former Soviet state. Local newspaper Zoghovurd has earlier stated that a $1.1 million agreement on the construction of a road in Armenia was signed between the Transport Ministry and Sisian BUAT company. The paper claimed that the mentioned company belongs to the deputy speaker. While the business activity is banned for civil servants in Armenia, Nagdalyan has "bravely" confessed that she is the sole owner the company.

Besides that, an Armenian diaspora organization "Stop Corruption in Armenia" in the U.S. has claimed that Nagdalyan and her husband could make off about $1 billion from the state budget to purchase a great number of mansions in different countries.

The weakening economic abilities of Armenia plays a dual role to shatter the resident's life and at the same time to prosper the oligarch statesmen's wealth. As the above reports show, the monopolistic tendency in Armenia's economy waters the mills of civil servants, in particular.

The Global Competitiveness Report 2014 has shed light to the widespread monopoly in Armenia that is mostly controlled by the oligarch state officials. The report ranked Armenia 105th out of 144 countries for the effectiveness of antitrust policy.