Anti-Corruption Council Set Up

Anti-corruption inter-agency council has been set up to upgrade already existing national anti-corruption strategy and action plan.

The council will be chaired by Justice Minister, Zurab Adeishvili. Head of the state audit agency, Levan Bezhashvili; head of the government’s administration, Kakha Bendukidze; an aide to the Prime Minister, Vakhtang Lezhava and some lawmakers are the members of the council.

“The council will update the anti-corruption strategy, which now needs new momentum; the council will also implement recommendations delivered by both the civil society and international organizations,” Vakhtang Lezhava said on January 7.

The government developed an action plan for the anti-corruption national strategy in 2005. Kakha Bendukidze, then-state minister for reforms, was in charge of overseeing the implementation of the action plan. Series of reforms have been undertaken since then, including cutting red tapes. Funding of the political parties from the state budget was also part of this anti-corruption strategy.

In 2003, Transparency International ranked Georgia 127th out of 133 countries listed in its annual corruption perceptions index (CPI). By 2007 Georgia made a significant progress as it moved out of the group of countries considered to have “a rampant corruption problem” and Georgia was ranked 79th in CPI out of 180 countries and in 2008 it was 67th.

President Saakashvili said on December 11, that the government would further cut “bureaucratic expenses” and would become even more vigilant to prevent, as he put it, reemergence of corruption.

“Our major achievement is that we have eradicated, almost totally, the corruption, although some petty corruption still remains,” he said.

Public Defender, Sozar Subari, wrote in his open letter in January, 2008 to Mikheil Saakashvili, who at that time was a president-elect, that although the authorities succeeded in rooting out widespread corruption, a new type of corruption – “neo-corruption or elite corruption” – has been created instead.

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