Bonuses continue to cause unrest

Tbilisi’s vice-mayor and deputy mayors received GEL 7200 in total as a bonus in 2016, says the statement of Tbilisi City Hall.

The statement reads the amount of bonuses received by the Deputy Mayors under the previous United National Movement government was twelve times higher than the bonuses of the incumbent deputy mayors.

"Given the high interest on the issue, we would like to inform the public about the amount of the bonuses received by the deputy mayors. We would like to clarify that in 2016 Tbilisi vice-mayor and deputy mayors received 7200 GEL as bonuses,” says the statement.

The City Hall issued the statement in response to some allegations on growing expenditures. City Hall claims it is a false allegation that the administrative expenses of the City Hall have been increased.

“The administrative expenses were cut down by 22.3 million GEL in 2017,” says the statement.

There are two different approaches to bonuses.

One side, mainly the opposition, say that in the situation when many people live in poverty in Georgia the state officials should not take salary supplements or bonuses.

Others, the government members and not only, claim that encouraging good employees is essential.

It is only welcoming that good employees are encouraged. However, an amount must be specified and procedures should be transparent. The information on why a person, for what merit, takes a bonus or a salary supplement should be public and accessible to interested parties.

There have been many situations when some high-level management employees sign relevant documents by themselves and take bonuses or salary supplements several times higher than their monthly pay.

Most of the times, while being in power the representatives of Georgian Dream try to acquit themselves by throwing back accusations in the direction of former government. A repeated comparison with the previous authorities’ actions is tiresome and irritating since by now the Georgian Dream party has had ample opportunities to prove itself after five years in power.