PM appoints nominees as Ministers

Georgia’s Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili has signed the orders of appointment of three Minister nominees as Georgia’s new Ministers of Sport and Youth Affairs, Environment Protection and Defence.

According to these documents, published on the official website of the Georgian Government, Tariel Khechikashvili is the country’s new Minister of Sport and Youth Affairs, Gigla Agulashvili is the new Minister of Environment Protection and Tinatin Khidasheli is the first female Defence Minister in Georgia’s history.

The PM’s press office said despite the three only being nominated today, they were already authorised to start working as ministers.

However if the new Cabinet failed to gain a vote of confidence by Parliament next week, their authority would be stopped.

Today President Giorgi Margvelashvili announced he would postpone his signing of the new list of Cabinet members for a week, despite PM Garibashvili urging for the approval process to happen as soon as possible.

In response to this decision, Georgia’s Government Administration released a statement saying that the President was earlier informed about the Minister nominees and while making his decision to postpone his signing of the document, he "unfortunately” did not take into consideration the several important international event ahead for Georgia in May – the EBRD Annual Meeting in Tbilisi on May 13-14 and the Eastern Partnership (EaP) Summit in Riga on May 21-22.

"The Georgian Government continues to work in an ordinary way but the delay of the confidence vote for the renewed Cabinet in Parliament has made some nuisance in our relationships with our Western partners,” read the statement published on the official website of the Georgian Government today.

The Prime Minister and other members of the Government were due to attend visits and meetings abroad before the EaP Summit, and the President’s delay of signing the document could affect this.

"Once again we underline that the Prime Minister’s position on the renewed Cabinet is completely formed and the Government is ready to finish all the procedures about the vote of confidence as soon as possible,” stressed the Government’s Administration.