Gov’t will reveal top secret documents signed with lobbing companies in 2008-2012

Georgia’s National Security Council has decided to publically release all documents the Government signed with foreign PR companies to promote the country between 2008 and 2012 which do not contain state secrets.

The move comes after the Member of Parliament alleged the former government of misspending money on overseas promotion.

Chairman of the Defence and Legal Committee of Parliament Irakli Sesiashvili requested the National Security Council (NSC) to reveal information about expenses spent on hiring international lobbying companies from 2008 to 2012 when United National Movement (UNM) member, Giga Bokera was head of the NSC.

Sesiashvili claimed the former government embezzled about 100 million Gel from the state budget to fund for this reason and claimed the money was not spend on promoting the country but on promoting UNM.

"Georgian society has a right [to] know how many money was spent on international promotion of United National Movement. We are interested [to learn] if this money was spent as a state purpose or for a private reason,” Sesiashvili said.

NSC secretary Irine Imrelishvili claimed a special team was looking into this issue and it was probable some documents would soon be made publicly available.

"The Security Council has already established a special commission to investigate this case [and] all documents, which are allowed by law to be disclosed to the public, will have their classified status removed,” Imerlishvili said.

She highlighted that between 2008 and 2012 agreements had been signed between the Georgian government and American and European PR firms to promote Georgia abroad. The American companies had removed the documents’ top-secret status because the Unites States’ law of lobbing activities obliged them to disclose their promotional activities.

Imerlishvili said work was now underway to ensure documents signed with European PR companies would be disclosed.

"Those documents have already [been] requested by the Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia. Georgia’s Law about state secrets obliged the relevant agencies [to] annually review state secret documents,” she said.