Shevardnadze Wants MPs to Decide Fate of Minimal Salary

(Tbilisi. March 17, 2003. Civil Georgia) – President Shevardnadze said today he would not veto draft on increase of minimal salary, claiming that the initiators of the proposal try to gain votes on the eve of the Parliamentary elections.

“I convened the Parliamentary special session on March 18. I will not veto the draft law. Some forces in the Parliament want me to veto this draft law, thus trying to lay responsibility on President, this is a trick,” Eduard Shevardnadze said in his Monday radiobroadcast on March 17.

Eduard Shevardnadze said that implementation of a Parliamentary resolution on a five-fold increase in minimal salary would be a “shock without a therapy” and “economic disaster.”

The pro-governmental Parliamentary factions try to declare the opposition United Democrats proposal on increase of the minimal salary to 115 Lari, adopted by the Parliament as invalid.

They say, among other things, that the vice-speaker – pro-opposition Gigi Tsereteli who led the February 28 session – did have the written authorization of the Chairperson of the Parliament to chair the session. The Procedural Committee of the Parliament upheld these claims. If the parliament would approve the Committee conclusion the law should have been annulled automatically.

President did not rule out today that the draft law was “really adopted with the procedural violations.”

The Parliamentary special session will continue discussion of the recommendation of the Procedural Committee of the Parliament.