How many of you miss and worry about your kids while pulling long hours at the office? Some Armenian lawmakers seem to have found a way to spend quality time with their offspring even while on the job -- they simply employ their children.
The investigative news service Hetq Online reports in a June 20 story that the children of a "significant" number of Armenia's legislators work at the 131-seat National Assembly; some as interns, others as salaried employees. And it is a cross-party trend.
Sensing that there might be a bit of a conflict-of-interest issue going on here, many of these lawmakers chose to have their children hired by comrades-in-lawmaking, Hetq reports. So, the son of Prosperous Armenia parliamentarian Arshak Mkhitarian works as an assistant for Mkhitarian’s friend, independent MP Grigori Margarian, a member of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) faction. Meanwhile, the son of the Republican Party’s Rafik Grigorian is gainfully employed by parliament's deputy speaker, Samvel Nikoian (also Republican Party).
Other MPs apparently have no qualms about hiring their children to work directly for them, Hetq reports. All the hard work by the Republican Party's Karine Atshemian for making life better for Armenian youngsters (on parliament's Science, Education, Culture, Youth and Sport Committee) could not keep this mother apart from her daughter, who works as Atshemian’s advisor. There's also the deputy chair of the foreign affairs committee, Vazgen Karakhanian (RPA), whose daughter doubles as his assistant. And the list goes on . . .
Nor need these doting parents worry as much as many other Armenians about forking out cash to their kids. The taxpayers have taken care of that -- the average salary of Armenian parliament staffers is 90,000 drams ($240) per month.
Giorgi Lomsadze is a journalist based in Tbilisi, and author of Tamada Tales.
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