140 Million Lari Transferred to State Budget as a Result of Plea-Agreements

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With the support of the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) information about the amount of money transferred to the state budget via plea-agreements became available for the society.

According to the IDFI, in 2009-2012 about 140, 39 million lari was transferred to the state budget via plea-agreements. 2011 was particularly significant in this trend when about 51 million lari was transferred to the state budget via plea-agreements.

The organization reported in its statement released on March 18 that they inquired the following information when working on the issue:

Information about the amount of funds allocated in the state budget via plea-agreements in 2009, 2010, 2011 and in 2012; amount of sums requested in plea-agreements for the last four years; information about the property of people whose properties were seized in 2009, 2010, 2011 and in 2012 and transferred to the state (separately for each year); total price of the properties in accordance to the aforementioned years.

IDFI petitioned to the Chief Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia on February 6, 2013 and requested the aforementioned information. On February 27, 2013 the Prosecutor’s Office responded to the first two questions of the IDFI. According to their letter, analytic unit of the Chief Prosecutor’s Office of Georgia does not document information about funds allocated in the state budget via plea-agreements. Their response letter of March 1, 2013 answered the question about seized properties. Namely, the prosecutor’s office clarified that Analytic Unit does not document the request information and on that ground they cannot update the IDFI with the requested information.

Afterwards, on March 5, IDFI sent same requests to the National Enforcement Bureau of the Ministry of Justice. On March 12, 2013 the National Enforcement Bureau responded that they do not have information about the amount of funds allocated via plea-agreements ion 2009-2012 as well as about those debtors, whose properties were seized in 2009-2012 and transferred to the state.