Former Health Minister Sandro Urushadze believes that the unusually high number of beneficiaries registered in Georgia’s social assistance database in previous years may have resulted from corruption within the agency and among social agents, or from political pressure. He made the remarks in an interview with Business Course.
The removal of more than 163,000 people from the subsistence allowance database has sparked widespread economic and social debate. Authorities say the process involves reassessing households and optimizing the programme to ensure that assistance reaches those who genuinely need it, while potentially saving tens of millions of lari. However, the government has not explained how those now removed from the database were initially registered as beneficiaries.
Urushadze ruled out methodological errors or improvements in household living standards as sufficient explanations for the scale of the removals. He described the situation as potentially involving the misuse of substantial public funds, arguing that such a large number of ineligible households could not have entered the system through methodological mistakes alone. He pointed to possible corruption among social agents and agency officials, as well as political pressure from local leaders seeking public support by securing social benefits for more families.
The former minister also said Georgia has not conducted an in-depth, independent assessment of the coverage, adequacy and effectiveness of its social programmes for years. He argued that repeated changes to the eligibility methodology were largely based on subjective and political decisions rather than research and analysis, distorting the system. Urushadze added that cash assistance alone cannot lift people out of poverty without sustained economic growth, stable job creation, better employment opportunities for young people, and improved access to education, healthcare and essential services.
According to official statistics, the number of subsistence allowance recipients fell by 163,000 during the first nine months of 2026. As of September, 547,115 people were receiving the benefit, 23% fewer than in January. The Health Minister has said that when the review began, 184,000 households eligible for assistance were registered in the database, while the number of households reassessed had reached approximately 80,000 by October.
