On July 15, the ruling party of Georgia "Georgian Dream" introduced to the public the results of the study "Baseline Study of the Transparency of Non-governmental and Media Organizations", which evaluated the transparency of 474 Georgian non-governmental and media organizations that signed the statement against the Russian-style law. The evaluation was carried out according to seven different criteria (1. Website; 2.Donor name/logo; 3. Project name; 4. Grant amount; 5. Project/grant term; 6. Annual report; 7. Organization team).

In IDFI’s evaluation, the real purpose of this study was to strengthen propaganda by the Georgian authorities regarding the need for the Russian-style law, and not to evaluate the proactive transparency of these non-governmental organizations.

In our opinion, the main measuring indicator of the government's attitude towards transparency and accountability is the situation in the state agencies themselves in this regard.It needs to be highlighted that since 2013, public institutions of Georgia have had the obligation to proactively publish public information.A decree of the Government of Georgia defined the list of minimum public information subject to proactive disclosure on the websites of state agencies.The list of information defined by law sets minimum requirements for the publication of information related to the activities and finances of administrative bodies and is mandatory.

Nevertheless, IDFI's studies over the years have demonstrated that the majority of public institutions do not meet even the minimum obligations imposed by government decree.Moreover, at the initial stage of establishing the standard of proactive information publication, public institutions fulfilled their obligations with greater responsibility than in recent years.For example, according to the monitoring results of 2014, the overall rate of proactive publication of information by public institutions was 71%, and in 2019-2023 this fell to 50-60%.In addition, from 2022, there was a sharp decline in the rate at which public institutions disclosed information in response to freedom of information requests.Specifically, 42% of requests remained unanswered, the worst result since 2010.

After the publication of the baseline study on the transparency of non-governmental and media organizations by the Georgian Dream, IDFI became interested in the transparency of the information that must be published on the websites of state agencies in accordance with the law.The websites of 14 central public institutions (Parliament, Administration of the Government, and Ministries) were monitored and 7 categories of public information subject to mandatory publication were evaluated (in the case of the first quarter of 2024 (in the case of information to be published on a quarterly basis) and in 2023 (in the case of information to be published annually)).

The monitoring showed that not a single state agency has published complete and up-to-date information according to all 7 categories.For example, 71% of agencies did not publish complete information on grants received and issued in 2023, while 65% did not fully publish information about funding received from reserve funds in the first quarter of 2024 and annual reports of 2023 activities.The administration of the Government of Georgia deserves a special mention, not actually having fulfilled the obligations defined by the decree of the government and not having published financial information since 2014. The case of the Ministry of Culture and Sports should also be highlighted: it has a budget of 470 million GEL and has not had its own website for more than 3 years.

Against the background of proactive lack of transparency of information related to the management of public finances and personnel policy, it is even more problematic not to provide public information on this category of data.For example, in 2023, none of the above-mentioned agencies provided IDFI with complete documentation of restaurant and travel expenses, information about vehicles on their balance sheet with detailed characteristics, a list of freelancers' job positions and salaries, etc.