Local NGOs address the issues of decentralization
By Natalia Kochiashvili
Wednesday, June 5
Non-governmental organizations address the issues of decentralization. 25 NGOs jointly announce a joint statement regarding the decentralization strategy project (2019-2025). As it is known, decentralization means the transfer of powers, finances, and property to the local self-government. The Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure prepared a mid-term strategy for decentralization (2019-2025) which mainly consists of three directions - an increase of local self-government powers, fiscal decentralization, and mechanism for providing citizens participation in local self-government.
In a joint statement of NGOs, they are calling on the government to present a clear vision and action plan on financial and property decentralization in accordance with the objectives of the municipal development of Georgia, the Constitution of Georgia, "Self-governance European Charter" ratified by the country and its obligations under the Association Agreement.
According to the statement, the government and its various agencies have no shared vision of decentralization and local development issues, which was confirmed on May 21sr at the IV forum of State and Local Government dialogue in Tskaltubo.
NGOs believe that existing project cannot be considered to be a full-fledged document of decentralization strategy, since through this document it is impossible to find out what powers, finances, and property will municipalities have in 2025 and, consequently, what will be their capacities to provide quality municipal services to the population. "Due to this shortcoming of the document, there is no clear action plan that will include responsible agencies and deadlines for implementation of the measures set out in the strategy," reads the open letter.
NGOs are against maintaining the existing system and consider that project of the decentralization strategy (2019-2025) submitted by the government is not answering the main goals of the idea of decentralization that is transferring the authority, finances and property from the central authorities to local self-government." One of the key objectives of decentralization policy is to establish a system of state governance that will stimulate municipalities to increase their income through their economic activity and to ensure even partial financing of their competencies. The current system forces the self-governments to be constantly focused on the free will of the central government to receive the necessary funds to fulfill their powers. Such a system cannot guarantee the independence of the municipalities and hinders their economic development as a whole," reads the document.
The letter says that providing the municipal services of the population is entirely dependent on the funding allocated from the central budget, which is increasingly affecting the state budget. Therefore, local NGOs believe, that in case of maintaining the existing system, it will become impossible to provide the region population with appropriate services, that will raise the (social) inequality level between Tbilisi and other municipalities.
Document assures, that despite the "Local Self-Governance Codex" obligations, the joint proposals of the NGOs and experts that were involved in the relevant working groups and despite the government's promise, the document draft does not actually mention the issue of giving the state property to municipalities – it's not determined what kind of land will be handed over to local self-government and in what time-frame.
In terms of fiscal decentralization, especially regarding the issue of changing income tax to shared tax, the record in the strategy is very obscure and isn't obligatory for the government.
NGOs argue, that problem is that part of the government policy, when various agencies are trying to give municipalities unprofitable, downtrodden powers, without proper financial support remains unresolved given that they don't have resources for implementing old entitlements, let alone the new ones. The document shared by local NGOs explains that one of the aims of the government strategy is to establish the policy in terms municipality's authorizations and their corresponding financial resources (which is the constitutional obligation as well). Therefore, the process of transferring powers cannot precede the transfer of financial and material resources.
"In general, the governing document of the decentralization strategy should include many other issues that are regulated by different areas of municipal management. In this statement, we focus only on two major problems - financial and property decentralization, solving this issue was government's obligation when working on the strategy document," the statement reads.
