The government has announced plans to increase ordinary pensions by GEL 10 while simultaneously decreasing pensions to retired high-ranking government officials, including law enforcers, former presidents, and MPs.

Parliament's healthcare and social issues committee will start discussing amendments to the law on pensions this Friday, and opposition forces have already made critical remarks over the initiative.

The amendments call for ordinary pensions to increase from GEL 28 to 38 (from USD 15.6 to USD 21.1) beginning January 2006. At the same time the head of the presidential administration Giorgi Arveladze said the government plans to decrease some of the highest pensions, which are given to former senior officials to a maximum of GEL 560 (USD 311).

Arveladze said about 300 people who served in law enforcement bodies had pensions from GEL 2,000 to GEL 5,500.

"Those who are against the decrease of these 2,000 and 5,500 lari pensions, they are fighting against the increase of the minimum pension, and those who support those 200-300 people, they oppose Georgia's 800,000 pensioners," Arveladze said Wednesday.

He explained the government decided to introduce the changes after 'speculation' by political groups. "In several issues, populist and provocative statements have been made, and we find it necessary for the government to explain this new initiative for society," Arveladze said.

In addition the government has decided to make a presidential pension the equivalent of an ordinary pension and a former president can receive it only reaching the pension age of 65 for men and 60 for women.

The government's initiative will subject pensions for former MPs to a one-third decrease. "MPs have received pensions equal to their salaries and they could receive it after 25-years of work. This should not be like that," Arveladze said.

Opposition MP from the Democratic Front fraction, Koba Davitashvili, argued that it would be better to connect pension levels to the amount of time a person worked.

"These people of course want their pensions to be closer to the living-minimum. But setting pensions based on the length of service is not so much a financial demand as it is a demand of dignity. People are simply offended that they work their whole life and get the same as people who did not work a single day," he said Thursday.

While the head of the healthcare committee in Parliament Gigi Tsereteli says that the government can only increase pensions gradually, pensioners themselves are eager to see the increase. 

"My first response to the news was: Give us the increased pension now so we do not have to wait for it until next year. It's extremely hard to live on this amount of money in a dignified way," Tbilisi pensioner Neolina Vashakidze told the paper.

Pensioner and ex-president of Georgia Eduard Shevardnadze also commented on the new initiative saying that there should be a special presidential pension and the decrease in pensions of former law enforcers was unwelcomed.

"Although we had tough times and problems with the budget, the law enforcers always had high pensions," the former president said.

The Democratic Front faction in parliament has already started a poster campaign calling on pensioners to protest for a system that takes into account how long a person had worked.