The government has not made the decrees public for 2 years, thereby violating the law, BMG says
By Liza Mchedlidze
Monday, September 12, 2022
BMG has published the information regarding the transparency of decrees adopted by the government and said that the last decree was published on the website of the Government of Georgia on September 26, 2020, since then none of the decrees adopted by the government in 2021 or 2022 have been made public.
The publication claims that at least 3 decrees are approved at each government session, and among them are decreed on the privatization of state-owned real estate in the form of direct sale and transfer of property to individuals or companies at a nominal price.
The regulation of the Government of Georgia obliges the authorities to upload all decrees on the website no later than 3 days after receiving them, except for issues related to state secrets.
According to IDFI, a court session has not been held on the matter so far. Consequently, the non-governmental sector does not have access to the decrees, which should be public, even if they are requested.
The senior analyst of the organization Transparency International, Sandro Kevkhishvili, in an interview with Formula, stated that the non-publication of the decrees is probably a political decision made at the level of the Prime Minister. According to him, this means that the government does not consider itself accountable to inform the population of its decisions.
"In the case of decrees, none of the channels for receiving information work: this information is neither posted on the website, nor is it posted on the legislative bulletin, nor do we receive these documents in case of public information requests. This can only mean that there is a political decision made here at the highest level, probably at the level of the Prime Minister, not to release this information. This means that the government has lost its sense of accountability towards the population, that it does not consider itself obliged to report to the population regarding its decisions, and these decisions, very often, contain serious corruption issues," Sandro Kevkhishvili said.
The administration of the Government of Georgia has yet to comment on this issue.
