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Due to Transparency of Defense Budget Georgia Ranked Moderate to Low Category

September 16, 2011

Due to the transparency of the defense budget Georgia has ranked moderate to low category.  The results were reported in the initial review of the Transparency of National Defense Budgets prepared by the TI-UK.

According to the survey, 16 per cent of the countries under review in this study score high; these are primarily developed countries with strong democratic systems in place. Twenty-two per cent score Moderate to High. Sixty-two per cent of countries score Moderate, Moderate to Low, or Low.

The primary goal of collecting country-specific information was to create an initial picture of the extent to which countries uphold principles of defence budget transparency.

“ All countries maintain a certain level of secrecy about funds spent on intelligence, the protection of witnesses, and similar activities. Secrecy and the protection of highly sensitive information, however, can be compatible with transparency if governments use sound management principles and strong legal systems are in place. In the aforementioned report, Georgia is in the second lowest ranking category along with states like Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Afghanistan, India, Mexico, Nicaragua and etc,” stated authors of the review.

In this report, the research team examined the public information related to defense department budgets of 88 states. Other main sources for this report were the Open Budget Index (OBI), Public Expenditure and Financial Accountability (PEFA) database, the UN Instrument for Standardized International Reporting for Military Expenditures, scholarly articles, publications by NGOs, and National or Ministry of Defence Budgets available online. The basis for the states’ rating was OBI results.

Out of eighty-eight countries, fourteen countries scored High. These countries are France, Germany, New Zealand, Norway, Sweden, United States of America, and etc.

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