Public Financial Disclosure System in Georgia

Third World Bank Conference on Financial Disclosure by Public Officials: “Increasing the Effectiveness of Disclosure Systems through Innovation”

May 13-14, 2013, Istanbul

Irakli KotetishviliDirector, Civil Service Bureau of Georgia

www.csb.gov.gekotetishvili.irakli@gmail.com

Twitter: @iraklikotetishv

In this presentation

• Who we are and what we do?

• How public financial disclosure works in Georgia?

• How did we get there?

• Recommendations to advance public financial disclosure systems

Who we are?

• Civil Service Bureau (CSB) is an independent agency promoting good governance and anticorruption projects in Georgia

• Director of CSB is appointed by the President of Georgia

• Amongst many other duties, CSB is responsible for collection and publication of Asset Declarations

How Public Financial Disclosure System works in Georgia?

• We have public financial disclosure system since 1998

• However it was only in February 2010 when the entire system became online-driven

• All senior Georgian officials submit their asset declarations annually at www.declaration.gov.ge

• Submitted declarations are published instantly on the

same website (www.declaration.gov.ge)

This is how our office storage looked like before 2010

This is how our new “storage” looks like since 2010

www.declaration.gov.ge

Key facts

• Every year we receive around 3,000 financial disclosures

• We have scanned and converted to pdf more than 50,000 hard copies from 1998-2010

• Our website hosts more than 60,000 disclosure documents in total

Key developments before the online asset declaration system was introduced

• Assessment of current situation and carrying out political consultations

• Preparing amendments to the legislation and lobbing in the Parliament

• Designing electronic system of asset declarations

• Testing the system

• Training of admin staff at the CSB and HR representatives of each agency

• Focus groups

• Testing … again

• Launch!!

• Constant updates and development

Who has a duty to submit his/her asset declaration?

• President

• MPs

• Prime-minister and Ministers

• Deputy Ministers, Heads of Departments and units

• Judges on all levels

• Mayors, Governors, Members of City Councils

• Heads of big state-owned corporation and other senior officials

In total: more than 3,000 seniors officials

What is declared?

• Bank accounts (and amount of money on it)

• Revenues (salary, bonuses, grants, etc.)

• Real estate (house, land)

• Expensive belongings (cars, jewelry, paintings, etc. valued over USD 6,000)

• Contracts (over USD 2,000)

• Expenditures (over USD 1,500)

• Gifts received (over USD 300)

• Cash (over USD 2,500)

This is how typical asset declaration look like

This is how typical asset declaration look like

This is how typical asset declaration look like

This is how typical asset declaration look like

This is how typical asset declaration look like

Submission deadlines

• Within 2 months after appointment and annually

• Within 2 months after leaving position

• Within 7 days after registering as a candidate for the Parliament election

Deadline notifications are sent via:

• Regular post

• E-mail

• SMS

Penalties for non-submission or forgery

• It is a criminal offense to fail to submit or to lie in the declaration

• There is a fine of up to USD 600 for late submission

• Paying fine or serving a sentence does not free person from submission obligation

This is how typical notification letter looks like

Hotline services

Online chat services

Success of Georgian Online Asset Declaration System (OADS)

Public now has more information about the government

Watchdogs are in a better position to monitor honesty and legality of incomes and expenditures of senior officials

Government became more responsive, cleaner and less corrupt

OADS inspired other government agencies as well to launch similar e-governance projects

Transparency International has been using www.declaration.ge

Transparency International has been using www.declaration.ge

Institute for Development of Public Information has been using

www.declaration.ge

International organizations about OADS

• Transparency International: “Tracking top-level ministry officials’ income and bonuses”

http://transparency.ge/en/blog/tracking-top-level-ministry-officials%E2%80%99-income-and-bonuses

• World Bank: “New World Bank Report Documents Successful Anti-Corruption Efforts in Georgia”

http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/NEWS/0,,contentMDK:23101050~pagePK:34370~piPK:34424~theSitePK:4607,00.html

• U.S. Library of Congress: “Georgia: System of Public Financial Disclosures Implemented”

http://www.loc.gov/lawweb/servlet/lloc_news?disp3_l205403574_text

• UNODC: “Electronic Asset Declarations System significantly enhanced and simplified process of the submission of declarations”

http://www.unodc.org/documents/corruption/WG-Prevention/Art_8_Financial_disclosure_declaration_of_assets/Georgia.pdf

Future of Georgian Public Financial Disclosure System (version 2.1)

In 2013 OADS will introduce evaluation tools enabling public to make different analytical reports from the database

By the end of 2013 OADS will be fully integrated into all mobile platforms (Android, iPhone etc.)

Number of officials who declare their assets will be increased by 500

Monitoring mechanism will be introduced by the end of 2014

Recommendations Countries shall adopt or enhance public financial disclosure mechanisms

Where possible the entire process of disclosure shall take place online only

All submissions shall be publicly available online and there should be no fees to access them

All senior officials with higher risk of corruption shall be mandated to submit asset declarations at least once a year

Databases shall be well searchable and in machine-readable format (XML, CSV etc.)

There shall be a monitoring mechanism in place to check validity of submitted asset declarations

Sanctions for non-compliance shall be adequate enough to prevent it from happening in the future

Thank you!

Questions? Find us in social media:facebook.com/CivilServiceBureautwitter.com/csbgovgeyoutube.com/CivilServiceBureau

Websites:www.csb.gov.gewww.hr.gov.ge www.declaration.gov.ge

E-mail: ikotetishvili@csb.gov.gekotetishvili.irakli@gmail.comTwitter: @iraklikotetishv