YEREVAN, OCTOBER 25, ARMENPRESS. The opposition Prosperous Armenia faction (BHK) of parliament says it doesn’t see any problems in terms of legality of the process on raising the salaries of top officials. However, it said that the problem is the confidentiality of the process.

“Everything has taken place within the law as prescribed by the law,” said MP Iveta Tonoyan.

“We are simply speaking about the fact that it was non-accessible to the public. I believe after the revolution the public has earned the right to be informed about such important decisions. This was neither a military nor security issue to be kept confidential from the public,” she said.

She argued that if the news media hadn’t made reports about the topic the process would’ve remained secret. Tonoyan said that only after the reports emerged did the Cabinet members announce that they are getting higher wages for a few months now.

MP Arman Abovyan emphasized that for many times has the issue of low salaries been raised. “But the idea is the following: if it is a very delicate subject, when a process is proceeding it should be exclusively be open,” he said.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told parliament earlier that the process wasn’t kept secret and that the wage raises were included in the 2019 budget debates when it was being publicly discussed.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan