Parliament creates Confidence Group
By Tea Mariamidze
Wednesday, December 14
Georgia’s Defense and Security Committee is forming a 'Confidence Group', which will carry out budgetary control of special programs and secret activities of the executive agencies of Georgia.
The group consists of five members. The chair will be the head of the Defence and Security Committee, Irakli Sesiashvili. The group also includes one member of the ruling party Georgian Dream (GD), one Majoritarian MP (who received the most votes), one member from the United National Movement (UNM) opposition party, and one member of the Alliance of Patriots of Georgia (APG).
The UNM representative in the group will be Irakli Abesadze, while the APG decided to send Irma Inashvili as their representative in the Confidence Group.
Inashvili believes her participation in the group is very important, and is ready for her candidacy to be studied by the State Security Service.
The leader of the APG party, often affiliated with Russia, says the UNM members have contacts with the occupant neighbor and disapproves of Abesadze’s participation in the group.
“I am ready to be evaluated by the State Security Service and they should also study the UNM candidate as well. It will reveal who really is an agent of Russia,” said Inashvili.
Abesadze welcomes his participation in the group and imposes the entire responsibility about the composition of the group to the ruling party.
“Every member of the Confidence Group passes control from the Security Service and of course the whole responsibility about the other members of the group lies with the GD,” he stated.
The Chair of the group, Irakli Sesiashvili, says that the formation of the group should be finished before the end of the year.
He said the GD party would have internal consultations about the candidates of two other members of the group.
Sesiashvili said any kind of confrontations between the opposition members of the group was inacceptable.
“Each candidate of the group passes through the procedure of credibility and reliability and this is a standard procedure for all members. We are not going to additionally study anyone’s candidacy,” said Sesiashvili.
In early 2014, the Parliament simplified rule of composition of the Group of Confidence. Previously, a parliamentary vote was required for endorsing members of the group, but later this rule was changed and the majority and minority parties are to name their representatives for the group membership.
