Unfortunately, the 2023 budget project does not respond to the challenges facing the country today - this is how the head of the IDFI, Mikheil Kukava, assesses the first draft version of the 2023 budget, which the government submitted to the parliament for consideration.
Mikheil Kukava deeply believes that growing expenditures on social protection do not solve the challenges that the country is facing today.
According to the head of IDFI, the government should focus on developing infrastructure, investing in education and reducing the size of the government.
"Expenditures on healthcare are almost up by 800 million, while pensions are growing by half a billion. At this time, the country has severe challenges, including education. We need the right incentives for the economy, we need to spend money on the same professional education to train staff and organize the infrastructure, which is directly related to attracting foreign investments", said Mikheil Kukava, while visiting TV-Program "Business Course".
According to him, it is good to increase pensions, but these expenditures must be compensated by reducing other costs, including steps to reduce the size of the government.
"We should not trust the indexes sometimes, for example, the Doing Business index was deceiving the world. This index is finished and many other indexes can share its fate. The government can be proud of the index of economic freedom, which shows that Georgia has a good result in terms of the government size, but this is not true, it is not optimal", said Mikheil Kukava.
