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2008 Assessment

Georgia: Integrity Indicators Scorecard

Georgia: Integrity Scorecard Report > Sub-Category: Budget Processes
Indicators		Score
40	Can the legislature provide input to the national budget?	0
41	Can citizens access the national budgetary process?	8
42	Is there a separate legislative committee which provides oversight of public funds?	100
43	Is the legislative committee overseeing the expenditure of public funds effective?	8

Indicator and sub-Indicator Details

Can the legislature provide input to the national budget?

40a: In law, the legislature can amend the budget.

Score:

YES

Comments: In the 2007report, the peer-reviewer wrote: "The reporter's comments clearly indicate that the Parliament can indeed amend the budget." This is not true. In law, the Parliament cannot amend the budget, and this is an imperative rule. MPs can submit their opinions to the government but only the government can make any amendments to it. Th Parliament has the right to adopt or refuse, but not to change. In case of refusal a confidence vote is to take place in Parliament, or the president can dismiss the Parliament.

References: Constitution of Georgia Law on Budgetary Systems of Georgia, art. 22 Law on Structure and Power of the Government of Georgia

40b: In practice, significant public expenditures require legislative approval.

Score:

100

$Scoring Criteria :: 100 Score Criteria: All significant government expenditures (defined as any project costing more than 1% of the total national budget), must be approved by the legislature. This includes defense and secret programs, which may be debated in closed hearings. <p>50 Score Criteria: Most significant government expenditures (as defined) are approved by the legislature, but some exceptions to this rule exist. This may include defense programs, an executive\'s personal budget, or other expenses. <p>0 Score Criteria: The legislature does not have the power to approve or disapprove large portions of the government budget, or the legislature does not exercise this power in a meaningful way.$

Comments: The law requires approval of spending from all funds if they exceed the limit approved by the parliament for more than 2%. This is where we have major problems. The fact that parliament returned the budget in 2008 does not mean anything regarding this question.

References: In law, there is no requirement of that type. The Parliament's only role is to approve the budget.

Peer Review Comments: Nothing has changed since 2007 in this field, so the rating should remain unchanged. In 2008, the Parliament did not approve the budget and returned it to the GOG, mainly due to the fact that it did not agree with the distribution of funds. Further, the law does not require parliamentary approval of spending from the president's or the government's reserve funds, even if those amounts are in the many millions.

40c: In practice, the legislature has sufficient capacity to monitor the budget process and provide input or changes.

Score:

100

Comments: The answer is clearly NO. By legislation or by the state budget, there is no staff considered for this purposes. Georgian MPs do not not even have assistants, not to mention the special service/staff unit dedicated to overseeing the budget, despite various foreign donor training programs associated with parliamentary budget oversight. For a number of years, there was a special budgetary office with the staff of the Parliament with no real power and force, but having at least political leverage. The office was abolished last year.

References: There have been no reports as there was no monitoring process from the Parliament for the last three years now.

Can citizens access the national budgetary process?

41a: In practice, the national budgetary process is conducted in a transparent manner in the debating stage (i.e. before final approval).

Score:

100

Comments: There is no debate over the budgetary process in the Georgian Parliament. Budget proposals are submitted with huge delays and the Parliament is always in a rush to approve it. At the same time, Georgia has a practice of adopting amendments to the state budget on the very last days of the year -- e.g. the 2007 budget was amended on December 27. This already speaks for the transparency and adequacy of the process. Consideration of the budget in 2007 was absolutely non-transparent and there were no debates. Firstly because part of November we had emergency situation declared after 7th of November and than immediately electoral campaign started for presidential elections. Secrecy of 2008 budget was due to the massive misuse of public funds for electoral purposes of the ruling party.

References: See "Georgian Government under Sunshine" - anti-corruption reports of the Georgian Young Lawyers' Association, editions 1-5: htp://www.gyla.ge/foi See TI Georgia reports See [ LINK ]

Peer Review Comments: Nothing changed from last year, when the rating was 25. Last year, the comment from the Social Scientist was as follows: "The process is transparent at the Parliamentary level to the extent that all plenary sessions of the Parliament are live on TV. However, the budget is discussed mainly behind closed doors, during the cabinet meetings (that are closed to the public and media) and in some cases at the committee hearings of the Parliament, which are technically open, but one should know specifically that budget is discussed. Information is not posted anywhere."

41b: In practice, citizens provide input at budget hearings.

Score:

100

Comments:

References: There are no media reports that citizens have ever provided any input to the budget processes.

41c: In practice, citizens can access itemized budget allocations.

Score:

100

Comments: Citizens or NGOs can access only what is approved by the Parliament. Only in rare cases do ministries publish their budgets in a more detailed format on their web sites.

References: See [ LINK ] - Government under Sunshine reports

Peer Review Comments: Parliament approves a somewhat broken down version of the budget, which anyone can access easily. Depending upon the institution involved, interested citizens can also be successful in requesting the information under the Freedom of Information section of the General Administration Code.

Is there a separate legislative committee which provides oversight of public funds?

42: In law, is there a separate legislative committee which provides oversight of public funds?

Score:

YES

Comments: The law lists no committees or functions. However, the Budget and Finance Committee of the Parliament performs this role.

References: The law provides for this function.

Is the legislative committee overseeing the expenditure of public funds effective?

43a: In practice, department heads regularly submit reports to this committee.

Score:

100

Comments: Georgian laws on budget and budgetary systems provide for quarterly reports of the Ministry of Finance to the Parliament about the state of affairs of the budgetary processes. It includes both the income and the expenditure. There is no other department or agency that provides any report on budgetary processes to the Parliament or its committees.

References: See Law of Georgia on budget and budgetary systems

Peer Review Comments: The situation has not changed since 2007. Agency heads submit reports to the committee, but these reports maybe lacking important details.

43b: In practice, the committee acts in a non-partisan manner with members of opposition parties serving on the committee in an equitable fashion.

Score:

100

$Scoring Criteria :: 100 Score Criteria: The committee is comprised of legislators from both the ruling party (or parties) and opposition parties in a roughly equitable distribution. All members of the committee -- including opposition party members -- are able to fully participate in the activities of the committee and influence the committee\'s work to roughly the same extent as any other member of the committee. <p>50 Score Criteria: The committee is comprised of legislators from both the ruling party (or parties) and opposition parties although the ruling party has a disproportionate share of committee seats. The chairperson of the committee may be overly influential and curb other members\' ability to shape the committee's activities. <p>0 Score Criteria: The committee is dominated by legislators of the ruling party and/or the committee chairperson. Opposition legislators serving on the committee have in practice no way to influence the work of the committee.$

Comments: All committees in the Parliament have symbolic representation from the opposition, as any one MP has the right to serve only in two committees, and the whole opposition has around 20 seats out of 150.

References: See [ LINK ]

43c: In practice, when necessary, this committee initiates independent investigations into financial irregularities.

Score:

100

Comments:

References: There have been no media reports of it ever happening.