Forty percent of governor’s offices' employees do not work: minister

The government will soon submit a bill to the National Assembly about territorial administration which envisages job cuts in governor’s offices, territorial administration and development minister Suren Papikyan told the reporters after the meeting with My Step faction MPs today.

“The package of bill is ready and must be presented for discussion. It is spoken about 30% cuts in staffs of each governor’s offices,” the minister said.

For instance, the job cuts in Aragatsotn will be 28%, which means that out of 121 staff members only 87 will remain. Currently the biggest staff has Gegharkunik’s governor’s office with 186 employees. The bill envisages having one deputy governor with one assistant. The governor will have two assistants. Now the governors have three deputies.

“This will result in optimal governance. Our studies have showed that the 40% of the employees, in essence, are not working, I do not say they do nothing, but the work they do may be done by another employee. We are not playing with the fates of the people, we do not want them to become unemployed, we just want to make the governance effective,” he said adding that professionals must work in the state governance system who know the sector will enough and not those who are employed due to their relative ties, friends.

As to whether the new authorities are trying to employ their friends, relatives instead, Papikyan said there is no such thing.