Due to the economic difficulties currently plaguing Europe, citizens’ concern with how government officials are using their tax money has been amplified, and the use of official state vehicles, a frequently abused privilege, has come under scrutiny. Consequently, efforts are being made in many EU and non-EU countries to reduce expenditures and cut back on the number of vehicles utilized by government officials, and Georgia is no exception. In most countries, however, including Georgia, major steps still need to be taken to reduce unnecessary spending and provide information to the public regarding the use of official vehicles.

With this in mind, it is worth taking a look at how other European countries have been implementing similar reforms and how the Georgian government has been regulating the use of official state vehicles.

How It Is Done in Europe

There is considerable variation regarding the use of state vehicles among European countries, both inside and outside of the EU:

• In 2011, the United Kingdom passed a law reducing the number of ministers with an allocated car and driver from 78 to 13. Non-cabinet ministers were given access to a car pool, and a number of rules and regulations were enforced as to which officials are allowed to travel in the Ministry’s vehicles and under what circumstances. Politically appointed special advisers can only travel in the car along with ministers, and those officials permitted to use the pool vehicles may do so only for official business or to travel from home to the office as long as their home is within a reasonable distance of London and they are working on classified documents. Following the restructuring, the Government Car Service now operates a fleet of around 90 cars, including a small number of reserve vehicles.

• Germany has very strict guidelines as to which government officials may use state vehicles and when. Ministers and Deputy Ministers all have cars with a driver assigned to them. Unlike in the United Kingdom, the Ministers and Deputy Ministers may use these vehicles for personal purposes but they are expected to pay for these services separately. Similar to the United Kingdom, car pools exist from which state officials can obtain a car, with or without a driver, for official trips.

• Spain, on the other hand, has an excessively high number of vehicles and a limited number of regulations as to which officials may use state vehicles and for what purposes. This can be attributed in part to the decentralized structure of the government in this country. Even though the Spanish government also made an effort to reduce the number of state vehicles in use in 2012, Spanish labor unions have denounced the fact that each Minister has five cars at his or her disposal, and reports indicate that Spain ranks number 6 in the world for the highest number of official vehicles (22,500) with total spending of 1,200 million Euros.

• Finally, Norway, another non-EU country, establishes the circumstances under which a government official may use state vehicles very clearly. For example, government motor vehicles may only be used for travel between home and work. They may also be used on Sundays and for public holidays to drive to a business trip if necessary. Additionally, government motor vehicles must only be used when it is the fastest and cheapest way to travel. The Norwegian Government Car Service, which provides car service for the government, is under the Prime Minister’s Office and currently has 23 cars, 17 full-time chauffeurs and one leader. A separate car and driver is provided for the Prime minister. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense also have their own car services, which are administered by the respective Ministries.

Georgian Regulations and Practice

In Georgia, laws are currently in place that regulate the use of official vehicles, but it is unclear how consistently these laws are applied and whether many of these laws are still in force. The existing laws only regulate the number of cars that a government entity can purchase. No regulations are in place regarding the use, model or price of the vehicles. The general impression is that the use of official state vehicles is decentralized and that the ministries are determining the number and type of vehicles to be purchased according to the available budget.

State vehicle usage is regulated by Presidential Edict No 364, dating from August 11, 2000 and signed by former President Eduard Shevardnadze. The document describes three types of state vehicles:

1.   Personal Vehicles can be used for work purposes by all high-level officials, including Ministers, department heads and deputy ministers. The number of drivers is not regulated by the presidential edict. It also does not elaborate on the distinction between using state vehicles for work and non-work purposes.

2.   General Use Vehicles can be used by regular employees at ministries, central offices of state departments and local and municipal governments.  Each of these government entities can have up to 6 state vehicles of this type used for work purposes. The number of vehicles per entity is based on the number of employees, with one car available for every fifty employees.

3.   Operative and Special Purpose Vehicles (e.g. police and ambulance cars) can be used by a separate list of Ministries, departments, agencies and local and municipal governments. The presidential edict claims that the number of this type of vehicles as well as the rules for their use was to be agreed upon in the year 2000, but there is no information publicly available regarding this decision.     

A 2009 amendment to the presidential edict made it possible for the limit on general use vehicles to be increased through a government decree. In other words, state entities can get an unlimited number of vehicles as long as they obtain the necessary permission to do so. Unfortunately, not all of the decrees issued are readily available to the public. Judging by the available information, in most cases, the limit is increased to up to a two dozen vehicles. In some cases, however, the limit is much higher, e.g. the Ministry of Agriculture has a limit of 79 cars, even though the default limit is only 6.

It is important to note that rules established by the presidential edict only refer to the executive branch of the government. The edict requests that the legislative and judiciary branches of the government design their own regulations regarding the use of state vehicles, but it is unclear what regulations have been imposed since the edict came into force, since regulations for the other two branches are not readily available to the public.

Finally, Autonomous Republics of Adjara and Abkhazia have their own laws on state vehicle use. The document for Adjara is not available online, while Abkhazia allows for each high-level official to have 1 personal vehicle and each state entity to have 1 general use vehicle (with the possibility to increase the limit through a government resolution).

Freedom of Information

Below is a table outlining the information obtained by Transparency International Georgia from freedom of information requests sent to seven ministries, requesting information about the number of vehicles owned as well as the total number of employees in their central offices (Ministries were chosen randomly, except those of Interior, Defense and Justice:

 Chart 1. Number of personnel and vehicles at ministries

According to the presidential edict, the main principle for determining the number of general use state vehicles needed seems to be the number of employees in a state entity -- one car for every 50 employees -- with 6 being the maximum. Based on the information received from seven ministries, the ratio of general use cars to the number of employees is 1 to 12 (1 such car for every 12 employees), and the ratio of all state vehicles (general use and personal) to number of employees is 1 to 8 (1 state vehicle for every 8 employees). These indicators are far from the ideal ratio of having 1 car for every 50 employees, as prescribed by the presidential edict.

Use of personal vehicles is fairly low in all ministries discussed in this blog except Ministries of Interior, Defense and Justice, where, in addition to the minister and the deputy ministers, personal cars are also used by lower level officials, e.g. department heads. This increase in the number of personal cars was made possible after a September 2010 amendment to the presidential edict.

None of the ministries reviewed here abide by the limit of one general use vehicle per 50 employees rule. All of them (except Ministries of Defense and Justice) have had their limit increased through government decrees, not all of which are publicly available. In addition, not all ministries satisfied our request to cite these government decrees and send physical copies, which makes it impossible to determine whether the number of vehicles owned by the Ministries of Defense and Justice is over the official limit or what the limit is.

Public Procurement

TI Georgia also looked at the data available from the public procurement databases, the government’s Unified Electronic System of State Procurement – tenders.procurement.gov.ge and TI Georgia’s own electronic tender database – tendermonitor.ge/en. Vehicles are purchased using both competitive electronic tenders and direct, non-competitive procurement. The latter is almost exclusively used under Article 10-1, 3 (e) of the Law on State Procurement that allows direct (simplified) procurement to be used to trade in old vehicles for new ones (the cost of an old car is subtracted from the cost of a new one during a trade). No guidelines, however, are in place regarding the model or the price of a car that may be purchased in these cases.

Between November 2012 and July 2014, seven ministries – Ministry of Energy, Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Culture, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Justice and Ministry of Interior – and their subordinate agencies (LEPLs under the ministries and departments that are registered as separate procurers in the Electronic Procurement System) spent around GEL 11.5 million to buy cars or to trade old cars for the new ones. More than GEL 10 million of these expenses came on the Ministry of Interior and the Ministry of Finance. Around 42% of all purchases are made through direct procurement, mostly by the Ministry of Finance.

Overall, around 350 cars were purchased or traded by seven ministries either through electronic tenders or simplified procurement.  Additional GEL 18 million was spent by the Ministry of Interior to buy more than 500 police cars. It is possible that some of the contracts are classified and cannot be found in Electronic Procurement System and therefore are not mentioned here. It is also not specified sometimes whether the cars are intended for the police or for some other purpose.

Chart 2. Spending (in GEL) by ministry (central offices and their subordinate entities) on cars from November 2012 till July 2014  

The Ministry of Finance and its subordinate agencies have spent a total of more than GEL 5 million (this is the difference between the old and new cars traded by the Ministry) on near 150 state vehicles over the past two years. Central office of the Ministry  only used direct procurement to trade old cars for the news ones and has not used competitive tenders to buy new cars.

The Revenue Service is the only LEPL under the Ministry of Finance which also spent money on cars, again only through direct contracts, and accounts for around GEL half a million from GEL 5 million spent overall by the Ministry and its agencies.

The Ministry of Interior remains the leader in procuring cars, though the Ministry itself accounted for less than GEL 500,000 of all expenses. The Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Energy are agencies that spent the least on cars, according to the information available in the Electronic Procurement System.

Chart 3. Spending (in GEL) of the Ministry of Interior and its subordinate agencies between November 2012 and July 2014

Of around half million GEL spent by the Ministry of Justice and its agencies, only GEL 42,598 was spent by the Ministry's central office, while the  rest is distributed among its 11 LEPLs, including Public Service Hall which acquired 4 cars for GEL 127,748 and the National Agency of Public Registry which spent GEL 132,096 on 6 vehicles.

The Ministry of Culture bought 8 cars since November 2012, all of which were acquired by the Ministry itself through competitive tenders.The Ministry’s two subordinate LEPLs bought 1 car each via direct procurement.

Ministry of Education has not purchased any cars itself, while its subordinate agencies acquired four cars in total worth GEL 92,225.