TBILISI, October 6 – A citizen-backed proposal to introduce free meals in Georgia’s public schools has been sent back for revisions by parliament – again.
This time, officials raised technical and infrastructure concerns about the scheme, Interpressnews reported.
The proposal was submitted as a citizens’ legislative initiative, a procedure that requires at least 25,000 voter signatures. Organizers submitted 37,304 signatures, of which parliament found 35,928 valid.
However, the parliament’s bureau rejected the initiative on Monday and sent it back to the organizers, instead of sending it to a parliamentary committee for debate.
The same happened at a bureau meeting on September 21, when parliament’s budget office said the proposal lacked financial justification, including an estimation of the costs. On Monday, budget office head Andria Gvidiani said the draft also contained several inconsistencies with existing legislation and needed to be corrected.
Deputy Finance Minister Giorgi Kakauridze commented on the initiative Monday, stating that the problem was that many schools did not yet have the infrastructure needed to provide meals safely.
Kakauridze said he had not seen the specific bill and therefore could not comment on why parliament had returned it, but argued that school buildings would first need suitable facilities for preparing and serving food.
The government has allocated 400 million lari for school infrastructure, he said, adding that more funding could be provided if construction companies were able to carry out additional work. Rebuilding and renovating schools takes years and kitchens cannot simply be installed in severely deteriorated buildings, the minister noted.
“If the infrastructure is not there, not only free meals, but meals in general cannot be provided in schools,” Kakauridze said.
