Ruling Party Rejects Opposition’s Call to Probe State Audit

Lawmakers from the ruling National Movement party rejected on December 5 a proposal by opposition MPs to set up a parliamentary group to investigate allegations that the General Prosecutor’s Office and Interior Ministry used the Chamber of Control – the state audit agency – as a tool to fabricate cases against former officials.
 
A former official of the state audit agency, Nugzar Nachkebia, claimed recently that he was under pressure from prosecutors and officials from the Interior Ministry to prepare a document incriminating ex-chief of the forestry department Bidzina Giorgobiani (currently in self-imposed exile in Germany) and ex-chief of the state standardization agency Mikheil Janikashvili for financial wrongdoings; the latter is now in detention.

MPs from the ruling majority said that investigation into these cases is still on and there is no need for an additional probe by the Parliament.

They also claimed that the opposition wanted to use the parliamentary probe “to discredit certain state structures.”

Parliamentary Chairperson Nino Burjanadze said that the refusal to set up a special group “does not mean that we are not interested in these cases.”

“That is why yesterday I instructed the parliamentary committees for legal affairs and financial issues to prepare their report on these cases within a week,” Burjanadze said at the parliamentary session on December 5.

MP Davit Gamkrelidze, leader of the opposition New Rights party, demanded on December 5 that Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili, General Prosecutor Zurab Adeishvili and acting chief of Chamber of Control Iakob Meskhia be summoned to the parliamentary session to be questioned over the allegations.

According to parliamentary procedures, a parliamentary faction has the right to summon executive officials, who are required to appear at the parliamentary session on the last Friday of the month.

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