"Zhoghovurd" "HayPost" trusts the secret only to the director's husband, Hayk Konjoryan. Documents

The “Zhoghovurd” daily writes: “Hayk Konjoryan announced from the NA rostrum on August 3 that the salary of his wife, the director of “HayPost”, is the lowest in the company’s history.

“Zhoghovurd” tried to verify this statement by sending a direct inquiry to “HayPost”. The answer is remarkable: the company gave us the names and terms of office of all directors for 20 years, but the company did not provide any information about salaries.

In other words, “HayPost”, represented by Director Shushan Aleksanyan, is ready to tell the public who has led the company in the past 20 years, but is not ready to say how much these directors were paid.

Meanwhile, the “Zhoghovurd” daily asked very specific things: the salaries of the directors for the past 20 years, their changes, bonuses, additional payments and other monetary payments.

According to HayPost’s response, salary is personal data, therefore, it cannot be provided without the employee’s consent.

But here begins the main question. If Hayk Konjoryan’s public statement refers to the lowest salary in the history of HayPost, how is the public supposed to verify that statement?

Konjoryan did not speak about it in the kitchen of his home, but from the podium of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia. And the “lowest salary” is a factual statement that implies a comparison with the salaries of the company’s previous positions.

But how can we compare, if only the company has information about the salaries of former directors?

Let us emphasize that Zhoghovurd had previously also applied to HayPost and the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure to find out the salary of Hayk Konjoryan’s wife, but again that data was kept as a state secret.

However, there is an important difference here: we did not request any employee’s health, family, or other intimate data. The issue concerns the amount paid for work, and this is from the state budget, and its comparison with the remuneration of the former heads of HayPost.

The Law on Freedom of Information provides for restrictions on access to information, including for the purpose of protecting the privacy of personal and family life. But the same law also regulates the right to receive information from public organizations.

This is a matter of specific public interest, since Shushan Aleksanyan, the head of HayPost, receives a monthly salary of 3.4 million drams or about 10 thousand dollars from the state CJSC, and the public must receive a justification for this.

But no number. No calculation. No comparison. Just a long list of laws and that's it.

What happens: Shushan Aleksanyan, the head of HayPost, transfers information about the salaries of former directors and her own salary, which she considers personal data, exclusively to her husband, Hayk Konjoryan, who was elected Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly with the votes of the government.

In other words, a personal secret, which concerns even former directors, a secret for the husband of the head of “HayPost”.

This is a case when state, public interest has been mixed with personal, family interest, which is a matter within the purview of the Corruption Prevention Commission.