Tbilisi City Hall increases assistance for large families

Some of Tbilisi’s largest families are set to receive a one-off extra funding grant to help them get on their feet.

Tbilisi Mayor David Narmania made the announcement at a Governmental meeting today.

He said vulnerable families will receive 800 GEL instead of 400 GEL if a third child is born, 1000 GEL instead of 800 when the fourth child is born and 1500 GEL instead of 1000 GEL for the fifth child an all future children.

"During the election campaign we promised we would increase assistance to large families and with these changes we have already accomplished this,” Narmania said.

"This is our first pre-election promise. I would like to congratulate you and all people that we have already begun to take real action despite the difficulties and the budget we were left [from the previous government],” Narmania said.

The Mayor said an addition eight million GEL from the budget had been distributed to regional municipalities to provide social assistance to families in Georgia’s regional areas.

"We have increased social services funding by 2.5 million GEL,” Narmania added.

From today, Tbilisi would work with a new budget, said Mayor Narmania. He said his predecessors had "exhausted” the finances in the health and welfare sectors and the new city leaders needed to find extra money in other areas of the budget to ensure that citizens were provided with necessary social services.

Furthermore, Narmania said the 2015 budget did not foresee municipality contribution to preparations for the 2015 Youth Olympics to be held in Tbilisi.

"Also [the budget did not allocate money] for water supply system construction-related issues at Tbilisi Sea surrounding areas as well as Olympic territory arrangement matters. Hence, we were obliged to search for additional finances so we addressed Tbilisi Sakrebulo and the Georgian Government for consent to borrow money [from a commercial bank],” he said.

Narmania explained that none of the activities related to social protection would be hindered.

"Our political opponents said that because we started tightening our belts the citizens would miss out on some benefits or investments projects would be suspended but this will not happen in any case. None of the social support and healthcare aid already in place will be halted,” the Mayor noted.