YEREVAN, OCTOBER 30, NOYAN TAPAN. Although the RA Ombudsman submitted a bid to increase allocations to his office by 50-60 mln drams with the aim of raising the salaries of employees of his office by 50%, the government left the allocations at the previous level in the 2009 draft state budget. The deputy minister of finance Pavel Safarian said at a joint sitting of the NA standing committees that no change in salaries is envisaged in the bodies elected by the parliament. In the words of the RA Ombudsman Armen Harutyunian, increasing the salaries of the employees of the RA Ombudsman Office is not only a financial but also a political problem, and his task is to equalize actually the status of the body headed by him with that of the other bodies elected by the National Assembly. Admitting the fact that the salaries of employees of the Constitutional Court and the Control Chamber did not change either, he at the same time mentioned that the actual salaries of the heads and employees of the indicated structures are 2-3 times higher as a result of their additional payments. A. Harutyunian said 5 employees of his 40-member staff left thier jobs, while another two are going to change their jobs. He pointed out that the reason is not only low salaries but also the fact that the years of work at the RA Ombudsman Office are not included in employees' length of service. The RA Ombudsman informed those present that he repeatedly raised the problem at all the levels but he was told that this is a problem of a political decision, and all the promises to deal with it were not kept. The NA deputy Rafik Petrosian said that under the Law on Ombudsman, the ombudsman shall submit a bid on financing the Ombudsman Office, and the amount of the financing requested by the ombudsman shall be indicated in the draft budget. If the government has any ojections, its representative must substantiate these objections during discussions at the parliament. The same law stipulates that the Ombudsman's salary shall be equal to that of the Chairman of the Constitutional Court.

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