In February 2011, Prime Minister Nika Gilauri suggested the formation of a joint stock company (JSC) 'Partnership Fund', with the aim to develop cooperation between the public and private sector to finish stalled investment projects, create employmen

Numerous proposals to reform the electoral system in Georgia are circulating. The final structure of that reform will be a key part of this emerging Democracy's future success. We firmly believe that citizens should understand the details of this deb

Several months ago, we published a blog post criticizing the Civil Service Bureau’s (CSB) income declarations website, http://declaration.ge , for not making its data available in a usable format. Although the CSB responded to some of our criticisms,

Around 300 people who suffered serious financial losses after investing money to have a flat built by construction company Center Point Group, held a manifestation in front of the Parliament building on April 28th, 2011. The protesters demanded the l

Georgia's law on Broadcasting gives the Georgian National Communications Commission (GNCC) the power to allocate television and radio broadcast licenses. Rather than allowing the market to govern the decision, the law unusually tasks the commission w

Update: 27.04.2011 For media inquiries regarding the report referenced in this post, please contact Global Financial Integrity, +1 202 293 0740, Washington, DC. gfip@gfip.org Georgia has seen an outflow of illicit money of USD 4.1 to 4.3 billion in t

Georgia has excellent freedom of information (FOI) legislation, but public officials do not seem to be fully aware and may thus hamper public’s exercise of rights. Georgian legislation commands that public information be released immediately upon req

GeoStat, the Georgian Government’s agency that is in charge of statistical information, has started to charge for many of the useful data it collects from January 1, 2011 on. The Board of the National Statistics Office approved the collection of fees

On January 5 the Board of Directors of the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) approved Georgia’s eligibility for a second five-year compact. The first compact, worth USD 395.3 million, is expected to come to a close in April 2011. Georgia is one

The blog is updated on May 16 2011. we received the answer to our FOI request, sent on April 7 2011, requesting information about how much money from the President’s reserve fund was used to pay for the New Year concert in Mestia. According to the Pr