Tbilisi City Hall budget 2016 revealed
How will the money be spent?

The 2016 budget for Tbilisi City Hall is almost 816 million GEL.

Tbilisi Mayor David Narmania revealed the money would be mainly spent on developing infrastructure, education, healthcare and social needs, as well as transforming Tbilisi into a more green, ecologically-friendly city.

Specifically, the Tbilisi city budget for next year was 815,900,000 GEL.

271 million GEL will be allocated to developing infrastructure in 2016, which is 61 million GEL more than in 2015,” said Narmania.

The Tbilisi official said 2.6 million GEL will be spent on roads, three million GEL on fixing damaged buildings and four million GEL on improving infrastructure in the districts.

Healthcare and social needs are two areas the local government will increase its spending.

For healthcare and social needs, 214.3 million GEL will be allocated from next year’s budget, which is 205 million more compared to this year’s budget,” said Narmania.

In addition to the existing healthcare and social programs, new ones will be also financed next year,” he added.

This included: 

• Herceptin (breast cancer) treatment program – three million GEL;
• Creation a children's physical development program, including orthopedic pathology screening and rehabilitation therapy - 500,000 GEL; and
• Creation of a multidisciplinary support team for people with mental and behavioral disorders - 300,000 GEL.

The 2016 budget will see an additional 3.4 million GEL allocated to the city’s ambulance service.

About 95.1 million GEL will be spent on education – this was about two million more than this year.

It should be noted that we increased our financing of the Art Education Support Program by 106,800 GEL. Plus we will provide free education in Tbilisi City Hall art schools for people with disabilities,” said Narmania.

More than two million GEL will be spent on a green project to transform Tbilisi into a more environmentally friendly and sustainable city.

Meanwhile, next year Tbilisi City Hall will implement "several large projects”, said Narmania. This included: 

• Urban development (renovating buildings, improving infrastructure) – 42 million GEL;
• Rehabilitation and construction of bridges and tunnels – 17.8 million GEL;
• Building 10 new kindergartens – 7.8 million GEL;
• Rehabilitation of seven metro stations – Station Square, Marjanishvili, Rustaveli, Freedom Square, Avlabari, Varketili and Akhmeteli Theatre – seven million GEL;
• Building a new rugby field – six million GEL and
• Building a Youth Centre – three million GEL;

Furthermore, next year there were plans to introduce 150 new public transport vehicles (buses and minibuses) in Tbilisi. For this purpose, Tbilisi City Hall has already started negotiations with different donor organisations.