Page 12 - GEORptMar21

Perceptions Index 2020 (CPI 2020) released on January 28.
Georgia’s score of 56 points in the index is unchanged from 2019, when it dropped by two points compared with 2018. In fact, its score has actually stagnated since 2016, after rallying for two years from 2014.
“In a country once celebrated as a reformer, anti-corruption efforts have visibly stagnated over nearly a past decade,” TI Georgia stated in the blog post.
This statement needs some explanation since it might be seen to conflict with the data. Tracking the CPI scores reveals a sharp improvement over the initial years of the decade and stagnation thereafter—but, as it precisely reflects “perceptions” rather than fixed reality, the noted improvement might rather have reflected expectations ahead of the new regime that took office in 2012, when billionaire businessman Bidzina Ivanishvili was appointed as prime minister after the victory of the six-party Georgian Dream coalition.
The anti-corruption efforts of Georgian Dream more or less ceased after top officials of the previous regime, led by Ivanishvili’s main rival Mikhael Saakashvili—self-exiled in Ukraine and wanted back home on multiple criminal charges that he decries as politically motivated—were convicted. Former PM Ivane Merabishvili, a leading ally of Saakashvili, was in February 2014 found guilty of public corruption charges and sentenced to five years in prison. That made him the most senior official yet to be convicted in a series of seemingly politically motivated prosecutions that followed the ascent of Georgian Dream. More than 10 other ministers and senior officials in Saakashvili’s former administration have faced similar prosecutions on an array of charges, something which supported the broad sentiment that anti-corruption moves per se were being pursued.
The stagnation period in anti-corruption efforts from 2016 to 2020 coincided with the second government of Georgian Dream.
“Georgia has not seen significant improvement in the ranking since 2012 when CPI scores became comparable year to year,” TI Georgia also commented.
In 2012, Georgia placed 51st on the world ranking with a score of 52 points; in 2020 it ranked 45th with 56 points. Nonetheless, Transparency’s statement is relevant in the sense that Georgia’s position has deteriorated since 2016 when it ranked 44th, the best position the small nation has ever achieved.
Concentrated power is undermining the government’s accountability, TI Georgia contends, stating: “Undue partisan influence over the law enforcement agencies has rendered them effectively incapable of investigating cases of possible high-level corruption. This has undermined the public’s trust in the law
12 GEORGIA Country Report March 2021 www.intellinews.com