Within the framework of the international initiative “Open Government Partnership” NGOs have prepared recommendations for the government of Georgia and presented them on February 5, 2013. According to these recommendations, except the high officials, who have the obligation to publish the declarations, the following persons should publicize their incomes:

•Heads and deputy heads of every Legal Entity of Public Law (LEPL)
•Deputy heads of sub-agencies
•Heads and deputy heads of departments and agencies of the ministries
•Heads and deputy heads of the state-founded Non-profit (Non-commercial) Legal Entities (N(N)LE)
•Heads of Ltds and Joint Stock Companies (JSC) created with 100% of government shares
The government took into consideration recommendations prepared by IDFI and other Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) concerning expansion of the list of public officials. Civil Service Bureau has prepared a bill on amendments to the “Law of Georgia on the Conflict of Interests and Corruption in Public Service”. These amendments expanded the list of the persons, who are obliged to publicize their declarations.

According to the amendments to “the Law of Georgia on the Conflict of Interests and Corruption in Public Service”, the following public officials are added to the list:
•Heads and deputy heads of departments of Ministries;
•Deputy heads of Structural subdivisions of Offices of State Ministers of Georgia
•Deputy heads of state sub-agencies
•Heads of those enterprises 100% of actions or shares of which are held by the government or local self-government body, also heads of their daughter enterprises
•Heads of N(N)LEs founded by the state or local self-government body
•While only heads of some LEPLs defined by the resolution of the government of Georgia were regarded as public officials, according to new changes heads and deputy heads of all LEPLs except those created for religious, cultural, educational and scientific-research activities, are public officials
•Heads of sub-agencies of Autonomous Republics of Abkhazia and Adjara
As for local self-government bodies, according to the changes of February 5, 2014, heads of structural bodies of city halls and municipal boards have been added to public officials:
•Heads of structural units of municipal boards/city halls
•Heads of structural units of Tbilisi City Hall
•Heads of structural units of municipal boards of districts

The most significant innovation of these changes is that before the amendments in November 2013 heads of state-founded LTDs and N(N)LEs were not regarded as public officials.
According to the legislation, the list of these N(N)Les and enterprises should have been defined by a decree of the government of Georgia. Thus, according to the decree of the government of Georgia №139, as of February 12, 2014, registry of those public officials who are obliged to fill in property declaration has been defined and the new public officials are:
1.Heads of state- or local self-government-founded N(N)Les, previous year’s turnover of which exceeds 100 000 GEL, according to annual profit declaration.
2.Heads of those enterprises, 100% of shares or actions of which are held by the state or local self-government body and previous year’s turnover of which exceeds 100 000 GEL, according to annual profit declaration, also their daughter enterprises (previous year’s turnover of which exceeds 100 000 GEL, according to annual profit declaration).
As of March 2014, property declarations of newly added public officials have already been added to the web-page of declarations http://www.declaration.gov.ge. This change is especially important, since despite high public interest it is the first time that such information has become available for broader society.

Expansion of the list of public officials is a step forward in terms of openness and accountability of the government. This is significant first of all in context of fight with corruption and conflict of interests. The society is given opportunity to check property status of heads of state enterprises, evaluate proportionality of their income with scale and success of the enterprises, and observe career promotion of these persons in politics or business.
IDFI is welcoming the fact that the government has taken into account recommendations of civil society in terms of expansion of the list of public officials. It will be better for future if the list of LEPLs becomes comprehensive and transparency is ensured also in case of those LEPLs created for religious, cultural, educational and scientific-research purposes. IDFI also considers it significant that members of supervisory boards of state enterprises and noncommercial legal entities are added to the list of declarants.