Finance minister says all firefighters will receive supplements

Georgia’s Minister of Finance Dimitri Kumsishvili has stated that all the fire-fighters who have been involved in fighting against large-scale fires in Georgia this August and September, will receive one-time salary supplements.

However, the Minister did not name a specific date stating this was depended on relevant bodies.

“A special decree has already been issued and about 3 million GEL will be spent for the supplements,” Kumsishvili said.

“We must respect their huge merit and admit that fire-fighters are heroes,” he added.

It is only welcomed that the government of Georgia made such a decision.

It must be stated that hundreds of Georgians were demanding rising of the fire-fighters salaries and giving the supplements to the people in the social networks.

The people also openly expressed their disrespect to the Crisis Management Council, responsible for such situations with its employees getting much higher salaries than the fire-fighters.

The fire-fighters monthly salary in regions is no more than 500 GEL, in Tbilisi it amounts to 800 GEL.

One-time appreciation is good, but not enough.

Real respect means a worthy salary in the long term perspective.

Let’s hope that the government will take a step to this.

Georgia had to combat with fire at more than 50 locations since August.

The threat of fires still exists.