Opposition demands changes in law on IDPs
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Tuesday, March 28
The parliamentary European Georgia opposition party is demanding a change to the law on Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and an increase of state financial support for the people.
One of the leaders of the opposition party, Elene Khoshtaria, visited the Ministry of Refugees with the IDPs on March 28 and stated that the monthly state support to the category of people must increase from 45GEL to 60GEL and the upper margin of allocating the money to the IDPs must be an income of 1500GEL and not current 1250GEL.
“We demand the Refugee Minister Sozar Subari to come to Parliament and discuss the initiative with the lawmakers at committee sessions,” Khoshtaria said.
On February 9 2017, the government approved the 2017-2018 National Strategy Implementation Action Plan for IDPs.
Subari said that the plan had many directions, and its priorities were providing IDPs with accommodation and it also would help them to have their own source of income.
The minister claimed that according to the national strategy, 4000 internally displaced families would receive accommodations in 2017-2018.
Subari also stated that those IDPs who had better conditions and higher incomes than others would lose the state support and the money would be used for the vulnerable IDPs and for constructing of flats of the internally displaced families most in need of the assistance.
The latest figures from 2014 released by Georgia’s Ministry of Internally Displaced Persons from the Occupied Territories, Accommodation and Refugees of Georgia, stated there were 86,283 registered internally displaced families in Georgia, which is equal to 259,247 IDPs.
The majority of internally displaced families (34,314 families or 98,742 IDPs) were registered in Tbilisi.
