NDI research suggest local authorities as unqualified

The National Democratic Institution’s (NDI) most recent polls say that half of Georgians evaluate the performance of both the national government and local institutions as ‘average’.

The national government received only a 10 percent favorable ranking, while local government earned a 16 percent positive performance assessment.

A majority believes there is a lack of professionalism in local government, and a plurality of respondents agrees that there is nepotism and corruption in local government, with a higher negative assessment in Tbilisi.

While few people have interacted with local government institutions, the majority of those who have been interviewed reported that they were treated with respect and that the officials were competent.

Even without any polls it is very clear in Georgia there is a big gap between the ordinary people and state officials.

There are almost no cases when officials use public transport, and they have infrequent interactions with the people who brought them to power.

The situation in local governments is even worse, especially when they have minimal budgets and are mainly dependent on the central government.

Many people in Georgia are employed in state service bodies and very few have their own businesses, which indicates towards a serious problem in the state management.

It has been known for many years that the country requires fundamental reforms for self-governments.

It has also been admitted that steps should be made for the state’s decentralization, and self-governing bodies must have more powers and finances to settle local problems without the involvement of the central government.

New governments launch new reforms to “address the problem”, but later always change their approaches and the issue of local governments remains unsettled.

A key problem is that steps taken are not made rationally and reasonably.

Draft reforms, which in most cases are not discussed with relevant professionals in depth, are written hastily and then equally quickly voted on in Parliament.

Such an approach damages the country and maintains key problems which remain unresolved from year to year, which, of course, affects the state’s overall development.