By Siranush Adamyan
A senior Armenian ruling party lawmaker defended his wife's appointment as chief executive of the state-owned postal operator Haypost during a heated parliamentary exchange on Sunday, arguing that she is the "lowest-paid director in Haypost's history."
The issue was raised during a National Assembly session considering the nomination of Civil Contract lawmaker Hayk Konjoryan for the post of deputy speaker.
Opposition MP Aghnesa Khamoyan questioned how Konjoryan's wife, Shushan Aleksanyan, was appointed Haypost's chief executive in November 2024. She referred to a recent investigation by RFE/RL's Armenian Service, which reported that Aleksanyan earns about $118,000 annually, or roughly $10,000 per month, and that neither Haypost nor the Ministry of High-Tech Industry had disclosed records of the selection process or the criteria used to determine her salary.
Khamoyan said Haypost is a wholly state-owned company and argued that the refusal to release records of the competition had raised further questions about the transparency of Aleksanyan's appointment.
Konjoryan rejected the criticism, saying his wife had worked at Haypost for five years as a department head before applying for the chief executive position through a competitive selection process.
"My wife is the lowest-paid director in Haypost's history," Konjoryan told parliament. "There has never been a Haypost director who earned as little as my wife. Directors in previous years and decades received significantly higher salaries."
He also said Haypost is a fully self-financing company and that neither his wife's salary nor those of other employees are paid from the state budget.
Khamoyan responded that Konjoryan's comparison with previous Haypost executives was misleading because the company had been under state management only since 2020. Before that, she said, it had operated under private trust management, where owners or managers were free to set executive salaries at whatever level they considered appropriate.
She argued that the current debate concerns the remuneration of the head of a state-owned company, where the chief executive receives about $118,000 a year. Khamoyan also questioned how Aleksanyan had moved from department head to chief executive within the company, alleging that Konjoryan had influenced the appointment, even if not directly.
She again asked why minutes of the selection process had not been released despite requests from journalists.
Konjoryan replied that Haypost had never been a privately owned company but had instead been managed under a trust management arrangement. He reiterated that the company is entirely self-financing before accusing Khamoyan of receiving a taxpayer-funded parliamentary salary while failing to attend work over the past five years.
Earlier investigation
The parliamentary exchange followed a July 31 investigation by RFE/RL's Armenian Service, which reported that Aleksanyan received more than $118,000 in salary in 2025 after becoming Haypost's chief executive in November 2024. The investigation said Haypost and the Ministry of High-Tech Industry declined to disclose records of the competition, the identities of other applicants, or the methodology used to determine the chief executive's salary. The ministry also acknowledged that no separate formula or criteria exist for setting the position's remuneration.
According to the investigation, Haypost's 2025 financial statements showed that the company's revenue fell 7% year-on-year and gross profit declined, while spending on senior management salaries increased by 28.6%. Haypost said the company's financial performance does not affect the chief executive's salary.
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