TI Georgia says that no genuine reforms have been carried out in the country for years to combat elite corruption. Photo: India Today.
Transparency International Georgia (TI Georgia) says that the current situation regarding corruption in Georgia is characterized by ‘impressively low levels of petty corruption combined with near total impunity for high-level corruption’.
In its recent findings for the project of German NGO LibMod - Zentrum Liberale Moderne, TI Georgia said that since the Rose Revolution in 2003, Georgia underwent a series of ‘sweeping reforms that successfully curbed petty corruption’ in the previously graft-plagued public administration.
TI Georgia says that this achievement has been maintained to this day.
However, the last 18 years have not seen similarly ambitious reforms against high-level (so called ‘elite’) corruption. As a result, both of the two administrations that have governed in this period have faced serious accusations of creating an environment of impunity for high-level corruption,” TI Georgia stated.
საქართველოში არსებული ანტიკორუფციული გარემოს მიმოხილვა და რეკომენდაციები ევროკავშირისთვის https://t.co/N9RKgR5576
— საერთაშორისო გამჭვირვალობა-საქართველო (@TIGeorgiaGeo) September 8, 2021
TI Georgia says that the EU should consider introducing conditionality on key anti-corruption reforms, such as the establishment of an independent anti-corruption agency and creation of a beneficial ownership registry, ‘both of which are necessary preconditions for any future efforts to combat high-level corruption and state capture (in Georgia).’
TI Georgia states that in addition to conditionality, ‘without which painful anti-corruption reforms are highly unlikely’, the EU should consider employing the model of engagement that it used during the visa liberalization process to help improve the anti-corruption environment (in Georgia) in general.