Socially vulnerable pensioners to receive 500 GEL vouchers
The new program will cost 20 million GEL and have 40,000 beneficiaries. Photo: Nino Alavidze/Agenda.ge
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Acting Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze has announced that socially vulnerable pensioners will receive 500 GEL vouchers to purchase various prescribed medications.
At the municipal government session held earlier today, Kaladze said the new program will cost 20 million GEL and have 40,000 beneficiaries.
We will always stand by those families and people who are still in need of our support, - he added.
According to Kaladze, Tbilisi City Hall upheld up to two million requests for social support in the last four years.
“Some companies put a 300-400% price tag on drugs in Georgia, which is unacceptable”, said Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili earlier today.
At the initiative of Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili, assistance to socially vulnerable children will be doubled starting July 1. Instead of existing 50 GEL, assistance for socially vulnerable children will be 100 GEL in Georgia.
Pensioners, persons with disabilities and other groups in Georgia will be able to buy 35 medications for 1 GEL to treat six kinds of chronic diseases, announced Georgian Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze today.
Georgian Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze has announced that pensioners and people with disabilities will enjoy 50 to 80 per cent discounts for chronic disease medications.
The International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy says that Tbilisi City Hall’s new project to provide medication vouchers to socially vulnerable pensioners carries the risk of manipulating voter choice. The organisation’s executive director Nino Dolidze points out that the acting Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze announced the initiative ten days before run-off elections. Therefore, the decision might be ‘motivated by elections’
The number of people receiving social assistance in Georgia has reached 633,000 in October 2021, Social Service Agency reports. As of today, 17% of the Georgian population receive social assistance, while the total amount of allowance given to the socially vulnerable exceeded 43 million GEL (about $13.61 m. / €11.79 m.) in October.
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili has announced that pensioners who are vaccinated against COVID-19 before January 1, 2022, will receive 200 GEL (about $63.29 / €54.71) pension bonuses. At a government session held earlier today, Garibashvili said that in order to encourage vaccination among the elderly, pensioners will receive 200 GEL bonuses after their first vaccine doses.
Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili said the government will ‘actively negotiate’ with pharmaceutical industry representatives in order to regulate medication prices. During a meeting earlier today with Georgian National Competition Agency head Irakli Lekvinadze, Garibashvili discussed an interim report on pharmaceutical market monitoring, asserting that the public is ‘very concerned’ about drug prices, and that regulatory measures need to become more ‘transparent.’
New buses will join the municipal transport fleet in Georgia’s capital Tbilisi this year while socially underprivileged families will receive accommodation, Mayor Kakha Kaladze said in comments on the City Hall’s plans for the year.