The Corruption Prevention Commission has imposed an administrative fine of 200,000 AMD on the Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Zaruhi Batoyan. This is stated in CPC the statement.

On 3 July, 2020, the Corruption Prevention Commission (Commission) decided to impose an administrative fine on Zaruhi Batoyan, imposing a fine of 200,000 (two hundred thousand) AMD for careless submission of incorrect or incomplete data by the declaring person. The RA Minister of Labor and Social Affairs Zaruhi Batoyan, who was the first deputy minister in the same ministry in 2018, in her declaration submitted on 21 June 2019, did not declare her income in the section “Income of the declaring official in the tax year” in the annual declaration of property, income and affiliated persons for 2018.

In response to the Commission’s request for explanations, Zaruhi Batoyan stated that her submission of the declaration in violation of the requirements for its completion to the Commission on Ethics of High-Ranking Officials was due to the fact that, unlike other fields, the field of income was not marked as Compulsory at the time of filling in the declaration and the system allowed not to fill them. On that basis, Zaruhi Batoyan asked to consider not declaring her income as a purely technical omission, to allow a correction in the 2018 annual declaration, to mention AMD 7,515,233 in the section “Income of the declaring official in the tax year.”

However, the Commission reaffirmed that when declaring the data to be declared, all fields, without exception, must be completed.

After paying the fine, Zaruhi Batoyan will be provided 7 working days to make a corresponding correction in the section “Income of the declaring official in the tax year” of the 2018 Annual Declaration of Property, Income and affiliated persons.