The Government of Georgia is increasing expenditures on pandemic management by GEL 376 million this year, - according to the draft amendments to the state budget for 2021.
"Assignments of the Ministry of Internally Displaced Persons from the Occupied Territories, Labor, Health and Social Affairs of Georgia amounted to GEL 6,468.9 million, which is an increase of GEL 376.0 million compared to the approved budget. The increased funds are completely related to the financing of pandemic-related expenditures, including an incentive program to increase vaccination coverage (reimbursement for people aged 60 and over in case of vaccination). GEL 250,0 million out of the allocated funds is already remuneration for the work already done," the document reads.
The Minister of Finance Lasha Khutsishvili also spoke about the need for additional funding for the measures to be taken against COVID-19 and explained that increase in tax revenues will offset the grown expenditures.
“Today, amendments made to the current year's draft budget is sent to the parliament, which mainly means an increase in expenditures in the health sector, amounting to about GEL 375 million, most of which includes COVID-related expenses and COVID-treatment costs.
Another important issue is that the increase in tax revenues will offset the grown expenditures on COVID-management. It means that the budget deficit will not increase this year, on the contrary, we expect it will be down by a few percentage points late this year”, - the Minister explained.
