Rusiko Machaidze, newspaper Resonance
Money transfers in Georgia soon might give rise to acts of terrorisms. To avoid the acts of terrorism in the country, deputy Tortladze requests universal and daily control of transfers which exceed ten thousand GEL. This initiative is questioned not only by the experts and opposition but the majority party members themselves.
But the interesting thing is that Tortladze’s Freedom Charter was passed through the first parliament hearing without any opposing votes from majority members. Nobody but Temur Tsurtsumia voted against the Charter.
Tsurtsumia names several factors as an argument for his position. According to him, many issues in the bill need to be specified and he can’t support the presented version.
Particularly, he does not like the fact that according to bill, all the parcels exceeding 10 000 GEL should be checked. He states that this is going to be impeding factor for economic development of the country, since this kind of a provision will not attract the investors.
Besides, Tsurtsumia criticizes limitations on certain jobs envisaged in the bill of Lustration Law. According to him, there was a period, when many people worked for central committee and it is unacceptable to insult them.
Tsurtsumia emphasizes that if these issues are amended in the bill and certain things are specified, he might support the Freedom Charter.
Gia Tortladze’s Freedom Charter unifies Law on Lustration and so-called Patriotic Act. The bill envisages strict monitoring of marine, land and air borders, objects of strategic importance and loads, controlling of finance operations and bank transfers, registration of secret officials of special services of SSR, creation of state commission, setting limitations on the former representatives of central committee and Lenin committee of the Communist Party and several other initiatives.
The bill was initiated in the Parliament a year ago. Several weeks ago, Tortladze added one more initiative to the project, according to which, Soviet-Bolshevik symbols should be barred by law in Georgia.
It is another matter whether or not these symbols promote terrorism in the country. The fact is that the prohibition of these symbols is considered to be antiterrorist action. But this is another matter. In this case the bank transfer control is most interesting since it is going to touch very wide range of people.
In the sixth article of the bill concerning the terrorism prevention, it says that “In order to avoid financing of terrorism, provision of financial help or other assets; The Finance Ministry, Ministry of Economics and Sustainable Development, Georgian National Bank and commercial banks should instantly present information to Ministry of Internal Affairs on the bank transfer of big amount of money from Georgia to abroad to public organizations, citizens and individuals and other financial operations in order to prevent anti-terrorist activities and crimes, determine the terrorist organizations and acts of terrorism and reveal the finance resources.”
This paragraph causes many problems. The main problem is that it will totally control people, as it talks not only about ten thousand GEL transfers (legislation determines the term “big amount” means ten thousand GEL and higher money), but directly states that information on “other financial operations” should also instantly be presented to MIA. This means that MIA will have information on any bank operations.
This is why the representative of Christian Democrats Levan Vepkhvadze sees the threat of blackmailing people.
According to him, no such law has been adopted yet since there are serious problems regarding the archives. Vepkhvadze does not exclude that after adopting the Law on Lustration, someone will express desire to disclose his archives and use it for blackmailing of person on whom he might have certain information.
As for the article concerning the concrete transfers, Levan Vepkhvadze considers that “this in the first place will endanger the businessmen since it will raise fear. It is obscure that the businessmen should present this declaration to MIA. I think this will be perceived as an additional pressure and we do not really need adoption of new pressures.”
“As for the bank transfer, this is already regulated, but now the commercial bank is obligated to report to the national bank the transfers that exceed 25 thousand GEL. In this case the addressee is changed and the money is shortened. That is why I think that before making decisions, we should estimate everything. If we talk about prohibition of Soviet symbols, we should calculate how much its implementation will cost. This means that we should not break down the parliament building and should know how much the destruction will cost,” – states Levan Vepkhvadze.
It should be noted that the majority has the same position and they think that many things should be amended in this law. The head of human rights committee requests adopting 12 amendments. The head of Legal Committee emphasizes exactly on these transfers.
According to Arsenishvili, he understands Gia Tortladze’s aspiration, but the bill should not shadow certain people. That is why he thinks that the bill should go through legal monitoring to exclude the possibility of unjust interpretation.
“For me, as a human rights defender, every person is a human first of all,” said Arsenishvili.
Despite these remarks, the majority of MPs voted for the draft-project at the first hearing and it can be considered a precedent because as a rule the parliamentary majority does not pass the initiative of the opposition so easily.
Experts think the new norm of the money transfer is very problematic both politically and financially. Moreover, experts think this norm will not have any result in terms of anti-terrorist activities.
“The sums shall be controlled of course. It works for the countries where there is potential threat of creating terrorist networks. Of course, there are some terrorist threats in our country too and we should control the situation but control of financial transfers is not effective, I think. As you know, ten thousands of citizens are abroad and send money to their families here; it will be very serious work to control all these transfers and we should not compel corresponding institutions divert their attention to these transfers from their actual activities,” said expert in antiterrorist issues Badri Nachkebia.
Nachkebia underlined that “serious terrorist act might be organized with 50 tetri too. Similar technology exists. So, the control of money transfers will not be very effective. Here we should take some other measures. If a person is suspected, not only ten thousand GEL but we should also control his 5 and 100 GEL-transfers. But it will be a serious burden of corresponding institutions.”
Expert Soso Tsiskarishvili said the innovation will be counterproductive for the economical development of the country and most important is that this norm can be politically used.
“When the government does not pay a person the money won in a lottery or in slot apparatus, and tries to get its share from it, of course, any person will be delighted to have some “profit” from this income too. So, conversation about the control of terrorism through controlling of the transfers of ten thousand GEL is not convincing enough. It demonstrates decay of our government. They have controlled income of millions for so many years and now they started to control ten thousands. Soon, they will start to control ten GEL in people’s pockets.”
“I suggest Mr. Tortladze to pay attention to the state instead searching ten thousand GEL in people’s pockets. The head of the anti-crisis service should not support creation of crisis in the country. They should pay attention to the fact that not only the state property but the strategic value of the state will soon be transferred to the Shanghai exchange. We assign all our property, what we have to leave to our descendants, to Russians, there are a lot of examples of it and I will not start speaking about it now. So, he should immediately request Gilauri to inform him where the billions of GEL of the state are transferred and then start to control our ten thousand GEL if somebody ever transfers me this sum and my dream comes true at last,” said expert Soso Tsiskarishvili.
Tortladze said that these arguments are not clear for him. However, he added that they can increase the limit of 10 000 GEL up to 25 000 GEL.
“The amount of sum is not important. The point is that when a receiver cannot indicate where s/he received the money from, problems originate and it is dangerous for the country. Illegal emigrants have nothing to do with it. None of the emigrants can transfer such a huge sum to their families and if they do, the receivers definitely know who sent them the money.
“I heard one more nonsense – people live abroad illegally and if they transfer money they will face some problems. How can they face problems? Their illegal living abroad has nothing to do with this draft-law. The receiver should be able to say who sent him/her the money. The sum should not be transferred from the closed accounts. There is no other mechanism to fight against the terrorist in the world. A person cannot receive more than 10 000 USD without naming its source. The point is that there is threat of terrorist act in the country and we have to take measures to protect our children from the threat,” said Gia Tortladze.
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