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Daniel Ioannisyan, the coordinator of Union of Informed Citizens (UIC), condemned the secret increase of officials’ salaries as a dishonest move.

According to a report by Hetq.am news outlet in July Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan ordered the doubling of salaries paid to ministers, deputy ministers and chief secretaries of ministries. The government kept the order a secret.

“It’s good and necessary to increase the salaries of ministers and deputy ministers, but doing this in secret is a disgrace and a violation of the rule of law,” he said in a Facebook post, adding the secret decision to raise wages factually applies to a large group of public servants.

According to Ioannisyan, it would be better for Pashinyan to say openly that the salaries of officials should be substantially increased and to initiate appropriate changes to the law.

“Yes, such a move would have been criticized by some groups, but it would have been a far more honest step than secretly and, in fact, illegally raising the salaries,” he wrote.

According to him, this practice started during the rule of the Republican Party of Armenia and it’s high time to put an end to it.