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The News in Brief

Wednesday, November 21
PM Bakhtadze - New initiatives to develop regarding pension loans

The Prime Minister of Georgia, Mamuka Bakhtadze made a statement regarding pension loans. He noted that the government is actively working on developing initiatives regarding pension loans and that they will be presented in the nearest future.

“We are intensively working to create regulations protecting the pensioners' rights. This concerns thousands of our citizens and it is a great challenge. The Government needs to work very hard to suggest specific problem-solving mechanisms to people but we are working on this issue and we will present new initiatives in a very short period of time,” stated Bakhtadze.

Prime Minister made this statement regarding plans to improve social conditions for pensioners who are not on the blacklist, because the loans they have received are automatically paid from their monthly pension, and It is very difficult for them to look for finances to fully pay the loan.

It is worth mentioning that Georgian Government has negotiated a deal with banks and non-banking lenders which would lead to writing off of the small debts of more than 600,000 individuals and their removal from the lenders’ “blacklists”, Bakhtadze announced at a press briefing on November 19.



MP Roman Kakulia on Corruption and Nepotism

The Chair of the Sector Economy and Economic Policy Committee, Roman Kakulia declared that corruption and nepotism should be punished very strictly and should not be considered as an ‘ordinary crime’.

According to Kakulia, misuse of the budget should be sentenced to a minimum of 10 years in prison.

“This topic should be unquestionable. I would tighten controls over nepotism as well. These two issues must be solved for good. The country where finances are very restricted, society has a right to be aware of what the government is spending on, they also have a right to control if this money is spent reasonably and that the corruption is not occurring during the process,” he said. (By Liza Norwich-Gerwik)