Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze, speaking in Parliament under the interpellation procedure, focused attention on the social assistance system and stated that the database of social allowance recipients requires review and updating.

The Prime Minister noted that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of social assistance recipients sharply increased, and among the recipients, 8% not only have better indicators than the poverty level but are actually well-off.

For this very reason, Kobakhidze declares that this issue is named one of the government’s priorities.

“The database of social allowance recipients needs to be reviewed, given that there was a kind of moratorium. During COVID, the number of social assistance recipients increased in 2020. Since then, a kind of moratorium has been in effect on reviewing the database. In reality, the database needs to be reviewed; it is impossible for the number of social assistance recipients to increase under conditions where poverty has been halved.

We conducted a kind of preliminary analysis and it was revealed that among social assistance recipients, only 8% are people who are well-off. Not only do they have better indicators than poverty level - out of these approximately 700-800 thousand, about 8% are well-off. Of course, the database of social allowance recipients needs to be reviewed, which has not been substantially done since 2020. Naturally, this is also one of the government’s priorities and tasks,” - stated Irakli Kobakhidze.