Ban on bonuses
By Tea Mariamidze
Thursday, July 24
Parliamentary majority memberTina Khidasheli presented a draft to parliament pertaining to bonuses. The parliament of Georgia is expected to consider Khidasheli’s initiative in the upcoming week.
“The initiative will ban salary supplements and bonuses for officials, including those who are elected by the Parliament,” Khidasheli said, stressing that taking high bonuses or salary supplements by state officials was unacceptable.
The issue of bonuses was one of the painful recent issues just after the scandal of expensive cars that had been purchased by government officials.
It should be noted that after receiving a negative reaction from civil society, the government made a decision to regulate the car issue and introduced regulations and prohibitions in this regard.
After NGOs revealed the number of bonuses and supplements taken by state officials, the issue also caused irritation among the public as the amount of money was excessive.
Despite the fact that certain members of the coalition and former City Council head Irakli Shikhiashvili claimed that they deserved the bonuses, the issue caused dissatisfaction among the majority members as well. Tina Khidasheli was one of the MPs who called the fact “unacceptable.”
Even after such stern statements, Transparency International Georgia (TI) made a statement saying that several state bodies and officials were still talking high bonuses.
The organization states that giving bonuses is a positive action. However, not in Georgia, as the law and budget planning system does not envisage bonuses.
“This obscurity is used by certain officials for their own interests,” TI states, stressing that the correspondence between the fulfilled work and taken bonus is not determined through any regulation.
Thus, the NGO has already appealed to the parliament to create a transparent system of giving bonuses. TI also appealed to the State Audit Agency to pay attention to salary and bonus issues in its reports.
