2010 budget issues

The Georgian Constitution requires that next year’s budget should be submitted to Parliament before October 1. If this is not done the Government’s should be held accountable. This year the Government submitted the draft budget to Parliament on September 30 but it was far from perfect as it did not give ‘prognosis indicators’, i.e. it did nor say where the revenues were expected to come from.

Former MP Lado Papava thinks that a budget without prognosis indicators has no value at all. There are two possible reasons why it was presented in this way: either the Government has not worked out where its income will come from and just plucked figures out of the air or there is a big risk that certain vital sources of income will not materialise.

The draft submitted shows that 2010 revenues will be around GEL 250-300 million lower than in 2009. However there is some speculation that next year’s budget will be at least 20% lower than this year’s, although this possibility is not yet being openly discussed. All state institutions will receive less financing apart from the Central Election Commission, Parliament and the Ministry of Education.