The answer of the Armenan Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, on raising salaries to ministers is not convincing, said project manager of the anti-corruption center Transparency International Varuzhan Oktanyan.

According to him, it is clear that senior government officials should be paid with dignity, but not only the idea itself is important, but approaches to their implementation.

"In the work of state bodies, not only transparency is important, but also accountability, and the justification that the public will still learn about changes in salaries to ministers after submitting declarations sounds unconvincing. I do not think that the increase was made through violation of the law. Perhaps a by-law was violated," he said.

Varujan Oktanyan noted that it is also important to understand how the increase in salaries will affect the return and efficiency of officials.

As reported earlier, Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan spoke on increasing the salaries of ministers and officials and noted as a result of his decision, the salaries of some ministers and officials increased so that the ministers would not be "in a tight position" and would not write out bonuses for themselves.

According to him, the implementation of this decision was secret for an exclusively internal technical process aimed at protecting confidential information.