UNM looks back on 2013
By Tatia Megeneishvili
Friday, January 17
The United National Movement (UNM) held a briefing on January 16 and discussed the government’s decisions and mistakes in 2013. They also published the “5 most important questions” from UNM member Zurab Japaridze, which are directed to the Prime Minister.
The first question was about the 10% error in the budget. According to UNM member Zurab Japaridze, Georgia’s budget is 29 billion GEL, but in two pre versions it was approximately, 32 billion GEL.
According to Japaridze, in 2012 the government planned to take 85 million GEL as internal and 750 GEL as foreign debts. “Now they stated that the country needs 7 times more internal - 600 million GEL and 1.5 times more foreign - 1 billion GEL.
The third question was about the government’s plans to reduce debts in 2016. According to Japaridze instead of a reduction, the debts are growing in 2014.
At the briefing on Thursday, Japaridze also stated that according to their estimations, the economic and budgetary policies pursued by the government in 2013 were largely wrong, which is why the country has seen significant damage. In the UNM’s opinion, the government last year allowed the 20 most important errors.
The government's inadequate response to aggressive xenophobic expressions, visa-free travel cancellation with some countries, the persecution of political opponents and selective justice, creating an unstable investment environment in the country, new bureaucratic structures, the discussion on the creation of the state pension fund, the discussion on the creation of the State Insurance Fund are among those errors.
According to Japaridze, the initialization of an Association Agreement with the EU in 2013 by the government, part of which is a deep and comprehensive free trade agreement, was the only right step towards economic recovery, but undoubtedly the most important.
