The leader of the opposition Georgian party “Agmashenebeli Strategy” Paata Manjgaladze claims that 800 thousand citizens have left Georgia over the past ten years, emigrating to foreign countries due to unemployment and poverty at home.
⠀
“Around each of us there is a family, one of whose members is abroad. Up to 800 thousand Georgian citizens have left the country over the past ten years. Also, about seven thousand people have left the ranks of the police, most of them emigrated due to the difficult social situation. Well-known the fact is that the entire platoon of patrol police in Kutaisi left for America. This is a difficult reality,” Manjgaladze said at a parliamentary meeting on Wednesday.
⠀
In turn, the leader of the parliamentary majority, Mamuka Mdinaradze, said that this figure is incorrect, since the opposition took into account only the number of citizens who left the country but did not return. “It is fraud and a lie to call the figure 800 thousand,” Mdinaradze said.
⠀
According to a December 2023 report by the National Democratic Institute, unemployment, poverty and high prices are pushing Georgians to leave the country to earn money. According to the study, every third citizen of Georgia is dissatisfied with their economic situation, 62% of respondents have at least one close person who has left abroad in recent years.
