No increase in pensions in 2015
By Tea Mariamidze
Friday, October 3
The Georgian Dream government will not increase pensions in 2015.
According to the chair of parliament’s Finance-Budgetary Committee Davit Onoprishvili, “the 2015 state budget does not envisage such growth.”
He stressed however that the government is intensively working on pension reform.
“The Ministry of Economy and the government are actively involved in the process. We will have more information over the planned amendments in the near future. No pension reform has been carried out in the country for years and we have to do everything from the beginning,” He said.
Meanwhile, the parliament launched the discussion of the 2015 state budget. The priority fields of 2015 include healthcare, social protection, education, agriculture and infrastructural projects.
It is already known that the parliamentary minority will not support the project. According to UNM MP Zurab Japaridze there is one thing that is most unacceptable in the draft.
“We do not approve taking a 1,300,000 USD loan. The loan will boost our foreign loans taken in the last two years to 3 billion USD,” he said.
The majority states that the draft is reasonable, based on 5% growth in the economy.
“Our incomes have increased by 600 million USD, so we will discuss all the details of the new state budget draft during committee meetings,” Onoprishvili said.
After various discussions, parliament should return its corrected version to the government by October22, 2014. The government will present its amended version to the parliament by November 15. The 2015 state budget should be confirmed by the end of the year.
