Parliament of Georgia plans to become world-famous; according to Roman Gotsiridze, head of the Finance-Budgetary Committee, more than 100 bills should be adopted during the small period before the New Year celebration and if the supreme legislative body of Georgia manages to do so, it will surely enter the Guinness Record Book. “Let’s meet the New Year together in the parliament” – MP Zurab Tkemaladze is ready to “sacrifice” the New Year supra for the title of recordsman.

The agenda of today’s extraordinary session impresses the parliamentary speaker as well. Nino Burjanadze calls the agenda “impressive” and worries only about the fact that “the parliament still could not impress anybody and is the subject of permanent criticism.”

MPs will do face toilsome work in the last decade of 2004. The matter refers not only to the amount of draft laws: in the course of the extraordinary session divergence of opinions will definitely emerge regarding the documents, which are ostensibly agreed upon between the government and the parliamentary majority.

One of such documents is the so-called “financial amnesty.” Yesterday’s bureau session finally confirmed the suspicion that this bill is applied to certain individuals and aims at freeing them from criminal persecution.

“Is anybody arrested under this article?” MP Zurab Tkemaladze seemed surprised, when he found out that the article on amnestying those arrested with the charge of Import, Preparation and Realization of Life-Threatening Products appeared in the bill.

“Yes, there are arrested,” MP Elene Tevdoradze responded to the curiosity of the New Rights Opposition leader. Tevdoradze relates the said addendum to the “case” of lemonade producers and mentions the company Nikora in the same context…

Nor the Tax Code is likely to adopt without problems even though the parliament has approved it with two hearings. MPs speak about discernible flaws that seem impossible to rectify. For instance, exemption of railway cargo transportation from the value-added tax was named one of such flaws at the bureau session.

It is not excluded that other defects might leak to the new Tax Code. Though Zurab Tkemaladze, Beso Jugheli and some other MPs demand they be rectified neither in 2004 nor in 2005. They justify their approach with the fact that entrepreneurs have already planned the year in advance and insertion of amendments to the Tax Code will create problems for them.

The bill on Broadcasting is in the “crisis situation” as well: executives and legislators cannot agree upon the issue of financing the public television. The offer on the part of the executive branch to finance public broadcasting within 0.15 percent of Gross Domestic Product seems unacceptable for MPs.

“Linking the funding of public television to the GDP is inadmissible. Such precedent does not exist in the world,” states MP Vano Chkhartishvili, chair of the Independent Single Mandate MPs.

Another issue surfaced on bureau’s yesterday session, which might become the subject of dispute between the government and the parliament. Zurab Soselia, chair of the Control Chamber, asks the parliament for help and notes that although the 2005 Control Chamber’s budget increases with one million GEL, the added amount will be used to cover old arrears and increase of average salary is unlikely.

“Average salary equals to 150 GEL in the Control Chamber, which bring about drain of qualified personnel. I am still lamenting about seven auditors, who have prepared three very powerful acts. Had they gone to private, commercial structures I would not have been so brokenhearted. But the matter is they moved to other, better-paid state agency. Only you are our partners and unless you save us the Control Chamber will be emptied of qualified staff,” Soselia was asking legislators. According to the Control Chamber chief, the only salvation is to increase average salary of the chamber employees to 500 GEL in 2005.

As if Soselia’s speech was signal, Bureau members unanimously started talking on fairness of his demand: Roman Gotsiridze says the Chamber of Control occupies the last place in terms of average salary and lags behind all governmental agencies; according to Zurab Tkemaladze, it is nebulous why an ordinary employee of the Environment Protection Ministry’s Apparatus or the Ministry of Finance has much higher salary then the chair of the Control Chamber.

Parliamentary Speaker Nino Burjanadze summarizes the disputes over this issue. “Against the background of other governmental agencies the Control Chamber does look poor. I don’t think that somebody deliberately wants to weaken it, but unless salaries are increased in this agency I will make a loud political statement,” Burjanadze does not suggest the government to show frugality.

Beso Jugheli reminded MPs that the problem of salaries concerns other bodies as well. “I don’t know what your relations are with the head of the Border Guard Department, but I will still tell you: frontiersmen get salaries eight times less then employees of other military structures,” Jugheli told Burjanadze.

The parliamentary chairwoman fully agrees with Jugheli’s remark and adds: “Head of the Border Guard Department constantly complains that he can’t find lobbyists in the parliament…”

Alongside myriad bills, another new faction will be “hanged” on the Parliament’s New Year Tree: the faction comprises 10 members and is headed by Gogi Liparteliani, single-mandate MP of Lentekhi. Guram Vakhtangashvili, single-mandate MP of Liakhvi, Revaz Sujashvili, single-mandate MP of Kazbegi, Revaz Pirashvili, the National Movement-Democrats, Giorgi Asanidze, single-mandate MP of Krtsanisi, Merab Samadashvili, single-mandate MP of Nadzaladevi, Temur Tcheishvili, single-mandate MP of Didube, Gocha Kimadze, single-mandate MP of Adigeni, Enzel Mkoyan, single-mandate MP of Ninotsminda, and Vakhtang Abashidze, single-mandate MP of Khelvachauri, are united in the faction.