In his 2011 State of the Nation speech, President Mikheil Saakashvili said that the Financial Times had referred to Georgia as the world’s number one corruption fighter. We checked the FT’s online and print archives and could not find any repor

Six years ago today Georgia’s Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania was found dead. A leading force for reform and democracy during Shevardnadze’s presidency, Zhvania, then Speaker of Parliament, was one of leaders of Rose Revolution in 2003. Zhvania was a ma

This post was updated on: February 7 The new Georgian tax code, in force since January 1st, established the position of Tax Ombudsman. Last week the Prime Minister announced that George Pertaia will hold the new position. Pertaia has served as Senior

Georgia's supreme audit institution has published its findings and follow-up actions on 25 cases. However, no information is published online on most of the Chambers’ audits of state entities. it still remains very difficult to assess the impact of t

How much do senior public officials make in Georgia? It’s a simple question with a complicated answer. The income of high ranking public officials is technically open information, but the data is not straightforward and some agencies are unnecessaril

In the spirit of clarifying some of the information about the recent spate of evictions of IDPs, we now have a sample eviction letter (in Georgian). It was provided to IDPs living in the temporary shelter on Zubalashvili Street #42 in Tbilisi. It sho

Two employees of the coal mine in Tkibuli were arrested on January 26. Five days earlier, an explosion in the mine had killed a miner and injured four other workers. It was the fourth deadly incident in this mine in only 13 months. A total of ten min

In the past several months, I’ve written blog posts criticizing two data websites: the Civil Service Bureau’s income declarations website, declaration.ge, and tenders.gov.ge, developed by the State Procurement Agency. One of the problems I identified

The current evictions of IDPs in Tbilisi have dominated recent news, with ongoing protests and some opposition parties taking up the cause célèbre. The public perception is that the evictions are fundamentally unfair, yet most of the information avai

Georgia’s showing in the Global Corruption Barometer (GCB), unveiled by Transparency International on December 9th, was impressive. But the Georgian media’s coverage of the GCB was even more striking. The story was the lead on all the main evening ne