PM candidate Gakharia to present the action plan of his next government
By Tsotne Pataraia
Thursday, September 5
The government plan for 2019-2020, submitted to parliament by the candidate for premiership Giorgi Gakharia has been published on the Parliament website.
Overall, Gakharia and his future government touch upon employment, health care, IDPs, occupied regions, infrastructure, tourism, and foreign policy, including strengthening the Georgian Government's action plan against Russian aggression and strengthening its relations with Western partners, but following the program, the Government of Georgia will focus primarily on achieving rapid and tangible results for each citizen in the period of 2019-2020. According to the document, there will be four main areas of action: security and human rights, economic development, education, and human capital development, and state governance.
The newly proposed program in the area of security and human rights includes branches of foreign policy, defense, and law:
“Given Georgian territories are occupied, it is important on the one hand to strengthen cooperation with our strategic partners and encourage the country’s integration in the Euro-Atlantic structures and on the other hand to ensure the state defence system to be in line with high standards” the plan reads.
The forthcoming government sees the integration into NATO and the EU as being crucial for state security in the long term along with effectively functioning law enforcement agencies and a high standard of human rights.
The government plan to promote economic development is to facilitate the creation of a free market-based business environment:
“The starting point of the government's economic policy is business freedom, active dialogue with business and providing a predictable environment for it. It is essential that the state creates fair rules, appropriate infrastructure and enables the private sector to gain competitive access to world markets,“ the program says.
In the development of education and human capital the government is meant to improve the quality of life for people by tackling the problems in education, social welfare, and healthcare:
“The state should promote the strengthening of human capital as an important factor in economic development, by developing education, decent social welfare, and quality health care, and providing these members with access to these benefits,” the plan reads.
Lastly, the fourth priority of the future government is effective governance: “The implementation of government policy will be based on enhancing governance effectiveness and result-oriented work that is visible and relevant to each citizen,” the future government promises.
The program also states that the government will take action to transform the country into a regional hub, large infrastructural projects will be carried out to achieve this goal and the development of an electronic governance system will be among the priorities.
Parliament has begun discussing the approval of the Gakharia’s government and its program yesterday and the process will be completed by the end of the week.
Bidzina Ivanishvili, Chairman of the party nominated Giorgi Gakharia's candidacy for PM on September 3, after the session of the political council of the ruling party “Georgian Dream”.
