Cabinet, MPs Discuss Draft Budget

Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania and cabinet members met with the parliamentary majority on October 22 to discuss the disputed 2005 draft budget.
 
“I am satisfied with the talks with the parliamentary majority. The parliamentarians demanded more information about the reforms planned by the cabinet in 2005,” Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania told reporters after the talks.
 
He reiterated a readiness for taking into account the Parliament’s remarks over the draft budget. “However, the most important thing is to jointly accomplish the process of reforms which we have launched together,” Zhvania added.
 
On October 19 a session of the Parliamentary Committee for Finance and Budgetary Issues denounced a draft of the 2005 state budget as “incomplete.” Parliamentary Chairperson Nino Burjanadze also criticized the document on October 19 and said that without amendments the draft is doomed to be rejected by the Parliament. 
 
The government must take the Parliament’s remarks into account by late October and return a revised version of the draft to the Parliament for further consideration by November 1.

According to the draft budget, revenues will be raised up to 1.8 billion Lari (approximately USD 1.0 billion), while expenditures are expected to reach 2.01 billion Lari (approximately USD 1 billion). GDP growth is set at 6.