Ensuring Transparency of Asset and Income Declarations of the RA High-Ranking Officials (AM0019)

The list of data of declarations on property and income of high-ranking officials subject to publicity established by the Government Decision N 1835-N of December 15, 2011 does not provide a fully transparent list of all operations of property of high-ranking officials and their affiliated persons included in the declarations. In particular, those are restricted by the price thresholds of operations. The Commission plans to reduce such restrictions and want to expand the list of available data to public and thus increase the accessibility of declarations to the public. Ensuring transparency of declarations of property and income of the RA High-ranking officials

4. Asset and Income Declarations of High-Ranking Officials

Commitment Text:

The list of data of declarations on property and income of high-ranking officials, subject to publicity established by the Government Decision N 1835-N of December 15, 2011, does not provide a fully transparent list of all operations of property of high-ranking officials and their affiliated persons included in the declarations. In particular, those are restricted by the price thresholds of operations.  
The Commission plans to reduce such restrictions and want to expand the list of available data to public and thus increase the accessibility of declarations to the public.

Ensuring transparency of declarations of property and income of the RA High-ranking officials.

Responsible Institution: The Commission on Ethics of the High-Ranking Officials (upon consent)

Supporting Institution(s): Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Finances

Start Date: November 2014...                                                            ............. End Date: June 2015

Commitment Aim

This commitment aims to enhance transparency of the asset disclosure of high ranking public officials in Armenia. At the time of adoption of the second action plan, certain thresholds were defined for the value of owned assets to be reported. The Government committed to removing these thresholds with a goal to make more information on public officials’ wealth available to public.

Status

Midterm: Complete

The progress report specified that the Government approved the decree on “making amendments to Government of Armenia Decrees №1835-N from 15 December 2011 and №1819-N from 15 December 2011” that removed the thresholds on assets and transactions to be declared by high-ranking officials. Since 2014, declarations of many high-ranking officials have been available on the website of The Ethics Commission  ^{The Commission on Ethics of High-Ranking Officials, accessed June 12, 2017, http://ethics.am/en/}  .

Did it Open Government?

Access to Information: Did Not Change  

Most high-ranking officials had already presented their declarations for 2015 in the revised format. However, media reported that not all declarations of high-ranking officials were available online  ^{“What is the secret mark”, shame.am, September 3, 2016, http://bit.ly/2sVHsVa. For more media reports on instances of officials’ non-compliance of income declarations, see usaarmenianews.com, September 7, 2016, http://bit.ly/2s4As8N; Alisa Manukyan, “Shushan Upper Field”, blognews.am, September 5, 2016, http://bit.ly/2rpfShg.}  . The media did not publish information about any new findings based on reduced thresholds.

As pointed out in the progress report, political power and economic interests tend to be closely intertwined in Armenia and the Commission of Ethics has no mandate or resources to verify the declarations or to sanction non-compliance. If the verification of declarations is not performed, high ranking officials’ declaration of transactions bigger or smaller than USD20K/USD100K are rendered irrelevant. As specified above, despite Armenian media and CSOs’ close monitoring of the publications of assets and income of high-ranking officials, there was no uncovering of new data following removal of thresholds.

Carried Forward?

The commitment related to the declarations of high ranking officials was carried forward in the third action plan for 2016-2018. The Government decided to improve the electronic system of asset and income declarations of high-ranking officials and individuals related to them. The commitment in the next action plan envisages publishing details of officials (subject to income disclosures) who fail to submit declarations within the time limits specified by law. It also entails ability of interactive extraction of data from the system in an open data format.