The Portion of the Nation Budget Spent on Freelance Employees is on the Increase

The Portion of the Nation Budget Spent on Freelance Employees is on the Increase

During the last 5 years, the amount of money state organizations spent on the salaries of freelance employees almost doubled and came to 226.4 million GEL.

In 2014, the remuneration of freelance employees came to 138.8 million GEL, in 2015 it was 156.8 million GEL, in 2016 179.1 million GEL, in 2017 it was 189.7 million GEL, and in 2018 it came to 226.4 million GEL.

In some of the agencies, for example within the Ministry of Health, an almost equal amount of money is spent on freelancers and permanent employees. In some of the agencies, the amount of money spent on freelance remuneration has doubled in recent years. For example, in parliament and other organizations within the parliament, in 2014 freelance remuneration costs came to 4.4 GEL, and in 2018 the costs came to 9 million Gel.

Money spent on freelance workers has been on the increase for a number of years: 2014- 1.9 million GEL; 2015 – 3.8 million GEL; 2016 – 2.9 million GEL; 2017 – 3.7 million GEL; 2018 – 4.5 million Gel.

In 2018, the various state agencies spent the following amounts on freelance workers: Parliament and other organization under the Parliament – 9 million GEL; Government Administration office – 2.2 million GEL, Cesco – 2.5 million GEL; general courts – 3.5 million GEL; Ministry of Finance– 3 million GEL; Ministry of Justice – 6.1 million GEL; Ministry of Defense – 12.9 million GEL; Geostat – 4.2 million GEL; State Security Service – 4.6 million GEL.

It is worth noting that although the transparency of information regarding permanent employees of state organizations is laid out in a piece of legislation and has been more or less proactively published, information regarding the number of freelance employees working for state organizations is often not published. Freelance employees are those who are appointed or through a work contract, have been employed for a certain period of time in order to carry out certain tasks that are not permanent.