Decision taken to liquidate 67 units of Azerbaijan's State Road Agency

The liquidation of road maintenance units under the State Agency of Automobile Roads of Azerbaijan (AAYDA) is continuing. Since the start of this year, decisions have been taken to liquidate 67 units under the Agency.

Most recently, a notice on the liquidation of 25 road maintenance units was posted on the Vergiler.az portal. They include 21 regular units, 2 special-purpose units and 2 LLCs responsible for the construction of highways. A few months earlier, a notice had been published on the liquidation of another 42 units.

Including the units responsible for landscaping along highways, AAYDA had more than 85 units. No official statement has yet been made on the structural changes.

Discontent over the job cuts began in 2025. At the "Special-Purpose Road Maintenance No. 1" LLC, whose liquidation began last year, workers were reportedly forced to sign applications and were removed from their jobs, with 80 employees dismissed in the process. Although the workers were first promised jobs in other departments, their employment contracts were later terminated. In July this year, employees of the "Special-Purpose Road Maintenance No. 10" LLC in the Siyazan district were reportedly dismissed without any explanation.

According to the Agency's latest report, AAYDA had 13,719 employees in 2024, a decrease of 904 people, or 6.1 percent, compared with 2023. The Agency has not yet published its report for 2025.

AAYDA has denied reports of mass layoffs. The Agency said personnel matters are regulated in line with labour legislation and internal regulations, that structural reforms based on international practice are being carried out as part of optimisation measures, and that the main aim of these reforms is to ensure the transparent and efficient use of budget funds.

The Chamber of Accounts found a number of shortcomings when auditing the management of the "Automobile Roads" Targeted Budget Fund in 2024. It found that the share of unpaved roads was still high (35.2 percent). Although the Fund's money went mainly to current expenditure, it was shown as capital expenditure in official reports; 19.6 million manats were allocated to repaying bank loans and to maintaining the Agency's staff, although the rules did not provide for this. It also found that a single state register of roads had not been created and that road lists had not been updated for many years.

While AAYDA received 1 billion 42.5 million manats from the state budget in 2023, this amount is reported to have fallen to about 500 million manats this year. Established in 2017, AAYDA previously operated as Azeravtoyol OJSC and Azeryolservis OJSC. Saleh Mammadov, who had headed the Agency since 2017, was removed from his post in February this year.