Lobbying of Ruling Party by Budget Money is Illegal

 “Since 2004 Georgian government paid 2.62 million USD to American lobbyist companies. From it, 1.67 million USD was paid after the war in August, 2008,” stated analyst of “Transparency International Georgia” Mathias Hutter.

Georgian government started to hire lobbyists in the USA since 1991-1992. In 2002-2004 Georgian railway allocated 785 000 USD on lobbying. Georgian side transferred 800 000 USD to the company “Orion Solution”. The owner of this company is chief advisor of John McCain in foreign policy.

Georgian government hired “Gerhardt Group Government Affairs” in January. The price of the contract was at least 436 000 USD. In 2008 “Aspect Consulting” also received 500 000 EUR. This is a short list of the hired companies which the Transparency International Georgia managed to get hold of.

It is unknown how much money was paid to Swedish company “Kreab”, working for Saakashvili in 2004-2007 and chairman of which was Karl Bildt before 2006; currently he is Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sweden. Today “Kreab” represents Russia, more precisely - “Gazprom”.

According to Matthias Hutter, it is not clear how much the Georgian government pays to European lobbyists and whether their activities comply with the interests of the country or United National Movement.

“Many organizers take money for lobbying but we have no idea if it lobbies Georgia or Mikheil Saakashvili himself. Different governments and States fund lobbyists and it is legal but process should be absolutely transparent. Lobbying President and ruling party from the budget money is illegal,” stated analyst of “Transparency International Georgia”.

Georgian government also wastes a lot of money on international advertisements in various newspapers and TVs such as BBC, CNN and other well-known media sources.

Shorena Ghlonti