Government Exhibits Itself

Tbilisi’s main thoroughfare, Rustaveli Avenue, was closed for traffic on Saturday with the government ministries displaying their, as officials said, “achievements” and “services” as part of “a dialogue with the public.”

For instance, the Agriculture Ministry brought four tractors, including a harvester and the Energy Ministry installed mocked up power lines, accompanied with leaflets involving information on the work done by the ministries.

Viewers were lined up at the Defense Ministry’s army field kitchen, installed outside the Parliament with personnel serving an army food. MoD’s exposition also included various types of weaponry and military equipment ranging from Humvees and a Turkish-made EJDER wheeled armoured vehicle to Bulgarian-made navy machine-gun MG-N and Finnish sniper riffle Sako TRG. A small Israeli-made unmanned aerial surveillance vehicle Skylark and a field hospital was also presented.

The Interior Ministry had a mocked up crime scene with a police officer explaining to viewers how various forensic equipment, presented at the site, were used by forensic detectives.

PM Nika Gilauri said the government decided to report to citizens about what had been done by various ministries and state agencies through this “unusual form.”

“This is an attempt to report to the society what the government ministries are doing; this may seem a strange form of doing that, but I am sure it will work,” Davit Tkeshelashvili, minister for regional development and infrastructure, said.

The announcement about the planned event was made late on September 4, only hours before the exhibition.

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