Political parties financed from state budget in Georgia are under a special monitoring

A new service of Supervision and auditing Chamber in Georgia created to monitor financing of political parties will pay special attention to the parties financed by the state, the management of the Camber reported.

“To produce information the political parties will have to fill in special forms. We have worked out three forms: for annual financial account, for donations received and for financial activities during the period of pre-election campaign. The parties must report on all financial and non-monetary donations”, Head of the new service Natia Mogeladze said.

According to Levan Bezhashvili, Head of Supervision and auditing Chamber, the parties must submit their annual financial account together with information on donations during the period of pre-election campaign till February, 1. Every three weeks the parties must submit information on all their transactions and financial activities.

“Our party has nothing to keep back. We took account of each tetri in due time and we are ready for monitoring of this kind. The only demand is for the head of this body to be independent and make no differences between the ruling party and an the oppositional one. Financial control and reaction to infringements must be the same for all”, Levan Vepkhvadze, Deputy of the Parliament from Christian-Democratic movement, comments on this innovation.

According to Manana Nachkhebia, one of the leaders of non-parliamentary party “The New Rights”, her party has a transparent funding. “We think if the authorities wish this law will become an instrument of manipulations for them”, Nachkhebia fears.

Akaki Minashvili, one of the authors of amendments to the legislation, Deputy of the Parliament from the ruling party “United National Movement”, emphasizes that all the parties must observe the existing rules.

“The main thing is for all the parties to be transparent, this is the position of our team, “United National Movement”, Minashvili says. – That is why we became originators of this reform for the information to be open, public and accessible to everyone”.