PM Giorgi Kvirikashvili met on January 26 with representatives from about eighteen non-governmental organizations and pledged increased engagement of civil society in government’s decision-making process.
“The goal of the meeting is to speak openly about the issues, which might [source] of our concern,” he said in opening remarks at the meeting. “We want governance in Georgia to be even more transparent and to have even higher public involvement in the decision-making process.”
“Involvement of the non-governmental sector is critically important,” he said. “I want to speak openly and sincerely about all the issues.”
After the meeting representatives of the civil society said that broad range of issues were raised during the meeting, among them the need for further reforms of the interior ministry, prosecutor’s office, judiciary; proposal to set up anti-corruption service to tackle “elite corruption”, as well as to create an independent investigative body to look into complaints over alleged cases of human rights violations by the law enforcement agencies.
