The Meeting of the Government of Georgia was held on 24 October 2008. The agenda consisted of 22 items.
Before the commencement of the Meeting, the Prime Minister of Georgia discussed the details of the donors conference held in Brussels.
Europe, America and other states and international organizations have allocated $4,5 billion in aid to Georgia to be disbursed over the next 3 years. Vladimer Gurgenidze pointed out that this is a very great success and an expression of very great economic and political support. "In this respect, I'd like to assign the Ministry of Finance agree, in coordination with, first of all, the Parliament, the Anti-Crisis Coalition, on the instruments, with which to assure transparency of the subsequent spending process.
It is necessary that the funds that are expected to come for the next year are reflected in the budget. This calls for certain adjustments. It is equally important to mobilize small funds and bring them over here in time. Of course, we must do all of this in coordination with World Bank and other donors. As we had presumed and expected, we got full support to finance the huge and important project of assisting both waves of refugees and improving their living conditions. It becomes topical to prepare the next stage of the strategy that among other things envisages assistance to the refugees of 1999 and earlier years.
A considerable part of such aid comes on infrastructure. It involves certain energy security issues. The donors' needs assessment document envisages sufficient funds for the improvement of water supply, sewage system and other areas of infrastructure. In this respect, I'd like to ask the Ministry of Economic Development to ratchet up efforts to flesh out the draft projects that we had and that we agreed on with the donors. Including with engineering and financial estimates to make sure that these funds are drawn within reasonable period and the projects are lifted off the ground," the Prime Minister said.
Press Center of the Chancellery of the Government of Georgia