President Vetoes Proposal to Increase Salaries

(Tbilisi. March 20, 2003. Civil Georgia) – President Shevardnadze vetoed today proposal on increase of minimal salary to the subsistence level – 115 Lari, proposed by the opposition United Democrats party and adopted by the Parliament on February 28.

President offers the opposition five-fold increase in salaries from 2005. 140 votes of MPs are necessary to overcome the Presidential veto that would be impossible for the opposition.

An emergency session of parliament convened by President Eduard Shevardnadze failed to take place on 18 March for lack of a quorum, nor did the minimum 118 deputies report for the morning session on 19 March.

Opposition deputies protested against the March 7 ruling of the Parliamentary Committee on Procedural Issues that the February 28 vote on a bill raising the minimum salary to 115 Lari from July 1 2003 was invalid.

Shevardnadze was constitutionally obliged to veto the original bill by March 20. He accused the opposition on 17 March of seeking to force him to use right of veto in a bid to depict him as indifferent to the need to raise salaries.

Zurab Zhvania, leader of the United Democrats and the former Parliamentary Chairman said at the briefing today that the President’s decision to veto the proposal was “victory of the united opposition.”

He said that the United Democrats will elaborate a new draft regarding the increase of the minimal salary.

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