TBILISI. May 13 (Interfax-AVN) - The Georgian Defense Ministry wants funding of the Armed Forces to be doubled in 2004, Deputy Defense Minister Gela Bezhuashvili told reporters on Tuesday.
"The draft military budget for 2004 that is already being worked out by the Defense Ministry provides for increasing the funding of the Armed Forces to GEL150m (over USD70m), i.e. for doubling it," Bezhuashvili said.
The deputy minister stressed that the army will face tough difficulties next year if the policy of funding the Defense Ministry is not revised.
"In particular, the U.S. program of military aid called Train and Equip that is worth USD64m ends this year, and next year, we will have to provide our own funds for maintaining the battalions trained in the framework of the program, which requires additional money," Bezhuashvili said.
The U.S. program provides for training a total of four anti- terrorist battalions. The Commandos special-purpose battalion ended training in December last year, the Sachkheri mountain rifle battalion completed the training course a few days ago, and the third battalion will start training in May. Selection of applicants for the fourth anti-terrorist battalion will start in July or August. A total of 2,000 Georgian servicemen are to be trained in the framework of the program.
The Georgian state budget for 2003 allocates GEL69m (over USD30m) to the Defense Ministry. According to Bezhuashvili, the ministry has so far been getting 45 percent of the allocated funds.