Acting National Bank President: NBG, domestic financial system “loyal” to int’l sanctions

Natia Turnava, the Acting President of the National Bank of Georgia, on Tuesday told local channel PalitraNews TV that the country, its central bank and the financial system had “always been” and would remain loyal to international sanctions.

Turnava was commenting after the controversy of the decree of the Bank that exempted Georgian citizens from international sanctions without domestic court rulings, and said the decision served to ensure that the enforcement of international sanctions in the domestic jurisdiction was “flawless” and that there was a “complete synergy between our constitution, legislation and enforcement of international obligations”.

We want their implementation to be impeccable”, she said.

We created a certain procedure between the execution of the sanction and the imposition of the sanction, which corresponds to our legislation, criminal and administrative proceedings, and therefore, we ensured that the intermediate investigation, study, the role and function of our legislation, was not lost”, Turnava said.

• Georgian central bank amends int’l sanctions compliance to exempt citizens without court judgement

She stressed the decision made at the central bank was independent. 

We are independent in our decisions. A greater share of our decisions cause criticism - sometimes it is criticism from the side of the opposition, in the case of [the ruling Georgian Dream party chairman] Kobakhidze it was criticism [on the Bank’s original decision to sanction Otar Partskhaladze, a former Prosecutor General after he was sanctioned by the United States Department of State earlier this month] from the side of the Government”, she added.

• Ruling party head on sanctions exemption for citizens without court judgement: punishing citizens without court verdict “thing of past”

In response to a question whether she had any information about withdrawal of funds from Georgian banks by Partskhaladze, Turnava said she could not comment on personal information of bank clients.

I assume that no transaction would have taken place - commercial banks treated this case very carefully [...] I can't be specific because this is about banking privacy and customer privacy. I cannot speak, but I want to say that there is no risk regarding Partskhaladze, and no risk has occurred”, she added.

Turnava also stressed the financial system of Georgia was “stable” and said while unspecified “panic-mongering calls” about the controversial decisions of the Bank had affected the population, they “could not shake the financial system as its fundamentals are stable”.

• Acting National Bank President pledges “no problems in operation”

“Inflation has stopped, tourism has been restored, foreign currency inflows in the country are proceeding normally, the process of investments is also proceeding normally, and therefore there is no fundamental factor to allow materialisation of even 10 percent of the picture they want to portray, as if there will be some threat to the system - it certainly won't happen, because it has no basis”, she said.