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happened next,” Khazaradze said.
Asked to clarify who the letter came from, Khazaradze said “the letter was from the Minister of Interior, Giorgi Gakharia.”
In a response quoted by InterPressNews, Gakharia denied all the claims made against him by Khazaradze.
“It was the attempt of the privileged businessman to grab the immunity from the parliamentary tribune with gossip. Everything else is a lie. Full stop," Gakharia reportedly said.
Khazaradze and his deputy were lately forced to step down from the supervisory board of London-listed TBC after the central bank, the National Bank of Georgia (NBG), and prosecutors levelled accusations of “actions contradicting conflict of interest legislation” in transactions dating back to 2008. Khazaradze retains his position as the board chair of TBC Bank Group PLC, the parent company of TBC, registered in the UK.
2.5 Georgia “faces democratic backsliding, making it vulnerable to high-level corruption”: Transparency International
Georgia “faces democratic backsliding, making it both vulnerable to high-level corruption and a country to watch moving forward,” Transparency International (TI) said on January 29 after releasing the 2018 edition of its Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI).
Although the small nation fared better than any other country in the Eastern Europe & Central Asia region—it placed 41st of 180 assessed countries with 58 points compared to 46th in the 2017 survey with 56 points (the points scale runs from 0 which represents “highly corrupt” to 100 which represents “very clean”)—it has come in for some firm criticism from TI.
In a press release on the CPI results, TI said: “Despite an urgent need to investigate cases of corruption and misconduct in the government, Georgia has failed to establish independent agencies to take on this mandate.
“Impunity contributes to public distrust. According to a recent poll conducted by our chapter, Transparency International Georgia , 36 percent of citizens believe that public officials abuse their power for personal gain. This is up from only 12 per cent in 2013. Progress in anti-corruption will continue to stall and reverse if the Georgian government does not take immediate steps to ensure the independence of institutions, including the judiciary, and support civil society, which enhances political engagement and public oversight.”
2.6 Georgia retains “Partly Free” ranking: Freedom in the World 2019 survey
Georgia has again been c ategorised as “Partly Free” by the annual Freedom in the World survey. However, the 2019 edition of the ranking shaves a point off the country’s Aggregate Freedom Score. It now stands at
7 GEORGIA Country Report April 2019 www.intellinews.com