Government information disclosure faces significant decline, IDFI reports

The Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) released a survey on Friday highlighting a “significant reduction” in the government’s disclosure of public information. The report emerged amid assertions by Georgian Dream authorities over the transparency of domestic NGOs in light of the contentious foreign influence transparency law.

On July 15, Georgian Dream presented a study, titled Baseline Study of the Transparency of Non-governmental and Media Organizations, evaluating the transparency of 474 NGOs and media outlets opposing the controversial law. According to the IDFI, the study served more as a tool for government propaganda supporting the legislation rather than a genuine assessment of NGO transparency.

IDFI emphasized that a true indicator of the government’s commitment to transparency was the state of information disclosure by its own agencies. It said since 2013, Georgian public institutions had been required to proactively publish public information online. However, the IDFI’s research indicated that most institutions failed to meet even basic requirements. IDFI noted initially, compliance was higher, with a 71% proactive publication rate in 2014. “This rate has since dropped to between 50% and 60% from 2019 to 2023. In 2022, a sharp decline was noted, with 42% of information requests going unanswered, marking the worst performance since 2010”, it said. 

Following Georgian Dream’s study on NGO transparency, IDFI scrutinized the transparency of 14 central public institutions, including Parliament, the Administration of the Government, and various ministries. They evaluated seven categories of mandatory public information for the first quarter of 2024 and the year 2023. The findings revealed that none of these agencies had fully published up-to-date information across all categories. Notably, 71% of agencies failed to provide complete information on grants received and issued in 2023, while 65% did not fully disclose funding details from reserve funds for the first quarter of 2024 or annual reports for 2023 activities.

The Administration of the Government of Georgia was singled out for not publishing financial information since 2014. The Ministry of Culture and Sports, with a budget of 470 million GEL, had lacked its own website for over three years. Additionally, none of the agencies provided complete records of restaurant and travel expenses, vehicle details, freelancers’ job positions, or salaries for 2023.