In reality, the reform of the accumulative pension model and the Pension Agency in Georgia has suffered an absolute collapse - our savings, which are cut from our remuneration and salary every month in the form of 2%, have yielded for the majority of Georgia’s 1.7 million citizens an annual benefit of only 300 lari, - this was stated by Tazo Datunashvili, a member of “Strong Georgia - Lelo.”

According to him, “Georgian Dream” must urgently abolish this fund and carry out a full reform in order to save the assets that have been accumulated in this fund.

“Today we, ‘Strong Georgia - Lelo,’ want to address those 1.7 million of our citizens who, through their daily labour, are making savings in the accumulative pension system in the hope that they will have a dignified old age and will not be dependent on the state’s social pension at the moment of reaching pension age.

These 1.7 million citizens of Georgia should be informed that over the last 8 years, that is, from the day the accumulative pension was introduced until today, in total the median pension savings of a Georgian citizen amount to only 2,400 lari. Our savings, which are cut from our remuneration and salary every month in the form of 2%, have for the majority of Georgia’s citizens - that is, for the majority of the 1.7 million - yielded an annual benefit of only 300 lari. This means that this system is in a catastrophic situation and that in reality the reform of the accumulative pension model and the Pension Agency in Georgia has suffered an absolute collapse.

An annual benefit of 300 lari on your pension in fact means that you are accumulating only 2% of your salary for your dignified old age. It will in no case cover a dignified pension for our fellow citizens and these 1.7 million people.

Here I also want to tell you very alarming figures: by 2035, instead of the 800,000 pensioners we have today, 1.1 million people will reach pension age; accordingly, the payment of the social pension, as well as any increase in this social pension, will be a much heavier burden for the budget. In parallel with this, when we learn that our savings amount to only 300 lari per year, this means that we should expect catastrophic results at the moment when these 1.7 million people go on pension.

In total, today 9.7 billion lari in assets are mobilised in the pension fund, which, as I told you, is in fact only your monthly 2% savings. On the one hand this shows that the real median salary in Georgia, that is, the real salary payments, is very low, and you know that the median salary is only 1,400 lari. I also emphasise very important details that are causing the collapse of this pension reform: the fund’s assets are invested in very conservative, low-risk portfolios, which means that the return from them is in fact meagre and that is why little money is accumulated; in parallel with this, inflation, that is, the rise in prices and the devaluation of our money, which increases every day, completely eats up this real savings that we are making and devalues our pension savings; both citizens and private companies were forbidden and restricted from creating pension funds, and citizens were forbidden from investing money in private pension funds where they could have had a higher return - for example, this could have been managed by the private sector.

This situation is not hopeless. ‘Strong Georgia’ has a concrete plan for how all of this should be changed when we take over the government and these pro-Russians leave power. This is through the active involvement of the private sector so that the return is higher and your real savings that you will make for a dignified old age are appropriate to what is needed for the dignified old age of our fellow citizens, and we must also fight inflation by a very simple method - this is foreign direct investment and economic recovery.

Foreign direct investment, which is in fact zero in Georgia today and which could have been the equivalent of enrichment if we had a modernised railway today, if we had a deep-water port in Anaklia, if Georgia acquired the function in international trade that is the transit function connecting China and the European Union - that is, Georgia needs great material wealth and large foreign investment that will create high-paying jobs and thereby our economy will recover. Unfortunately, today we have a pro-Russian government that is doing the exact opposite of what is needed for your savings and pension to be dignified. Today ‘Georgian Dream’ is turning Georgia into isolation, is turning the Georgian economy into isolation and is turning it into a black service for Russian black money, which means that the benefit that you, those 1.7 million people who every month have an additional 2% collected by the state into this pension system, receive is zero.

‘Georgian Dream’ must urgently abolish this fund and carry out a full reform so that we somehow save the assets that have been accumulated in this fund,” Tazo Datunashvili stated.