By Lia Avagyan
Armenia’s state-owned postal operator Haypost has refused to disclose the identities of advisers and assistants working under its chief executive, Shushan Aleksanyan, the wife of one of the country’s senior ruling party lawmakers, extending a series of refusals to provide information about her appointment and the company’s management.
The latest findings were reported by Mkrtich Karapetyan, an investigative journalist with RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, who has been examining Aleksanyan’s appointment, remuneration and management of the wholly state-owned company.
Haypost rejected Karapetyan’s request for the names of Aleksanyan’s advisers and assistants, the number of such positions, and information about heads and deputy heads of company divisions. The company cited Armenia’s personal data protection legislation, including provisions protecting personal and family privacy.
Aleksanyan is married to Hayk Konjoryan, a senior member of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party and now a deputy speaker of Armenia’s parliament. When Aleksanyan was appointed to lead Haypost in November 2024, Konjoryan headed the ruling party’s parliamentary faction.
The latest refusal follows a July investigation by Karapetyan that raised questions over how Aleksanyan was selected to run Haypost and how her compensation was determined.
Also read: Opaque selection, high salary of senior Armenian ruling party lawmaker's wife questioned
Neither Haypost nor the Ministry of High-Tech Industry, which exercises the government’s shareholder rights in the company, disclosed records of the selection process, the identities of other applicants or details about the company’s supervisory board. Haypost said information about board members constituted personal data.
The ministry also acknowledged that it had no separate formula, methodology, or set of criteria for determining the Haypost chief executive’s salary. It declined to provide minutes of shareholder meetings approving executive remuneration, citing commercial secrecy, and refused to disclose salary information for Haypost chief executives over the previous six years.
$10,000 monthly salary draws scrutiny
Aleksanyan receives roughly $10,000 a month, or about $118,000 annually, according to her asset declaration. Her salary and the lack of publicly available information about her selection sparked controversy in Armenia.
The issue reached parliament earlier this month, when opposition lawmakers questioned Konjoryan during his nomination as deputy speaker. He defended his wife’s appointment, saying she had worked at Haypost for five years and was selected through a competitive process.
“My wife is the lowest-paid director in Haypost’s history,” Konjoryan said, adding that Haypost is self-financing. Opposition lawmakers disputed the comparison, noting that the company had been under private trust management before returning to direct state management in 2020.
Also read: Ruling party lawmaker defends wife's appointment, salary at state-owned Haypost
Data protection agency questions secrecy
Armenia’s Personal Data Protection Agency has meanwhile questioned the grounds Haypost and the ministry used to withhold some of the information the investigation sought.
The agency said Haypost and the ministry are organizations of public significance and are subject to Armenia’s freedom of information requirements. It said the identities of members of the commission that selected Haypost’s chief executive, for example, concern their professional or official activities and cannot be withheld simply because they constitute personal information.
The agency also said that when documents contain information that can legally be restricted, authorities should consider redacting or anonymizing those portions rather than withholding the documents entirely.
Despite that position, Haypost subsequently declined Karapetyan’s Aug. 6 request for information about Aleksanyan’s advisers and assistants, continuing to cite personal data protections.
The scrutiny also comes as Haypost’s financial performance has weakened. The company’s revenue fell 7% in 2025 to about $23.5 mn, while gross profit declined to around $2.7 mn from $3.8 mn a year earlier. At the same time, the wage bill for senior management increased 28.6% to about $586,000, according to the company’s financial statements.
Haypost has not disclosed how many advisers and assistants currently work under Aleksanyan.
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