Council of Europe’s anti-corruption monitoring body said despite some progress since 2013, Georgia has only “partially” implemented recommendations on transparency of political party funding.
The Council of Europe’s Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO) published on August 11 a report on Georgia’s implementation of recommendations on anti-corruption legislation and on transparency of party funding.
In 2011 GRECO issued a set of recommendations to Georgia on criminalization of corruption and on transparency of party funding. The first assessment of the implementation of these recommendations was done in 2013 and the new report is looking at further progress achieved from July, 2013 to March, 2015.
While all five recommendations related to corruption offenses have been implemented, only three out of ten recommendations in respect of transparency of party funding have been met, according to the report.
State Audit Office (SAO) is in charge of monitoring political finances. Noting SAO’s “independence and impartiality”, GRECO called for further strengthening of the agency’s capacity and for more proactive investigation of cases of violations of political funding rules, as well as more effective prevention of misuse of administrative resources during the election campaign.
“With respect to the transparency of political funding, the momentum generated by the compliance procedure has still not been used to launch a comprehensive legal reform aimed at aligning the Electoral Code (EC) with the Law on Political Unions of Citizens (LPUC), as was envisaged by the authorities,” reads the report.
“It would appear that the amendments introduced into the LPUC have only partly addressed the various concerns underlying GRECO’s recommendations. For example, although the independence and impartiality of the State Audit Office… appears to have been attained not only in law but also in practice, the full scope of the SAO’s duties has not been reflected in the pertinent legal acts and its expertise and capacity in this area call for further reinforcement.”
“Other persisting concerns are the need for the more effective prevention of cases of misuse of administrative resources, more proactive investigation of infringements of the political funding rules, and for effective, proportionate, dissuasive and timely sanctions that are enforceable in respect of all persons/entities on which the LPUC and the EC establish obligations,” reads the report.
The Georgian authorities will have to submit GRECO with information regarding the implementation of the remaining recommendations by late March, 2016 at the latest.
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