Local self governance is not financially independent

Local self governance bodies in Georgia are not truly independent from the central government and have great difficulty in handling their own resources amid this pressure from above. The country has become more centralized. The budget of the self government bodies is decreasing as all the financial resources are mobilized by the central government and are then returned back to the local self government bodies. There is only one tax which is collected for the local budget, this is property tax. This deprives the local government of the ability to have its independent finances targeted at local needs and creates the situation where local governance figures have no motivation to initiate positive change at a local level. Therefore analysts think that central government should relieve some of the pressure on the self governing bodies, and allow them more freedom so that they will be able to accumulate some money and spend it according to local needs while keeping control of local affairs.