By

Constantine Janjghava

Published at Democracy and Freedom Watch: http://dfwatch.net/etransparency-in-the-government-of-georgia-44456

The issue of eTransparency or access to the data concerning processes, decisions, policies and actions of branches of Government of Georgia mediated by information communications technology (ICT) has gradually become one of the most actual daily needs for civil society in a state of developing democracy such as our nation - Georgia.

In a spectrum of ICT media consisting of radio, television, cellular phones, computer and satellite systems etc. the most interesting and the least explored field with regard to the accountability and transparency issues of the Government turned out to be the Internet.

Starting from 2009 a non-governmental organization the Institute for Development of Freedom of Information (IDFI) along with the other Freedom of Information related issues has been the first and the only establishment to take on the research of eTransparency issues in Georgia fundamentally. The project named “Auditing of Official Web-Sites of Executive Authorities (Ministries) of Georgia” executed in 2009 was the first pilot project to reveal specific tendencies based on the Institute’s methodology of research. In 2010 in the framework of the project some 100 web-pages of different Public Authorities of Georgia (the entire executive branch of Government of Georgia including the ministries, legal entities of public law, sub-agencies etc.) monitored so far have shown the certain tendencies which shall be further detailed.

Before I, or any legal expert, can cover in brief the tendencies revealed by the two year period of permanent researches, at first glance one should refer to the legal basis of proactive publishing of public information by project targeted public authorities which turns out to be missing in Georgia. The reason is that the norms established by the Government to regulate e-Transparency, during recent years, represent unstandardized examples of legal regulation that lack correlation, while the public authorities do not have unified standard of publishing public information on their official web-pages. The desire of interested persons of access to certain information is limited to examples of placement of information on public authorities’ web-pages. Furthermore, except of some exclusion, the placement of the official web-page in the Internet represents the good will of the public authorityitself.Hence, the basic strategy of the activities of IDFI with regard to improvement of Government eTransparency environment was developed in two directions – a) the permanent monitoring of web-pages of government agencies and providing them with written recommendations for the improvement of web-pages; and b) creating model law provisions for the public authorities to place their web-pages in Internet and defining the standard list of public information to be proactively published on their web-pages. The latter implemented by IDFI in 2011, is anticipated to be examined and incorporated in certain form by the Government (mainly the Ministry of Justice of Georgia or the Committee of Parliament of Georgia on Legal Issues). Anyhow, the adoption of regulations obliging government agencies to proactively publish such sort of information as: the information concerning directorship, general contact information, the description of competences and functions, general information concerning the structure, the official statistical information collected and processed, annual reports on activities performed, information about participation in state programs and projects, information on audits and procedures for appeals against activities performed, database of legal acts, information pertaining to public information disclosure, information concerning state procurements and state property privatizations, information on personnel recruitment (vacancies) and information concerning financing and expenses is no way deemed by the Institute as the substitute tool for article 38 of General Administrative Code of Georgia covering the issue of provision of access to the copy of public information by the public authority. In other words, the interested person should enjoy access to the specific public information both - by alternate means of Internet (proactively published information) and by payment of copying fees (right to access to public information according to the General Administrative Code of Georgia). The statement of proactively disclosed information as non deliverable copy under the mentioned article 38 by the lawmaker may unjustly limit the right of the interested person due to no access to Internet mainly in regions of the country.

As I have mentioned above, hereby, I provide the brief description of tendencies revealed during the two year period (2009-2011) of monitoring. First of all, it’s worth mentioning that public authorities in Georgia show progressive tendency for creating their official web-pages notwithstanding the fact that there is no unified legal regulation obliging the existence of the official web-pages for public authorities. In case of reorganization or creation of any new public authority (the ministries, legal entities of public law etc.) under the existing legislation of Georgia, their official web-pages are being actively created and launched on Internet by their web-administrators in short terms.Hence, the main problem in Georgia regarding eTransparency is not the fact that there are no official web-pages of public authorities on Internet but the point is non-existence of unified standard or scheme for proactive disclosure of public information held by public authorities. The tendency shows that the substantial amount of authorities (except for the Ministries of Georgia) deem the proactive disclosure of contact information (incomplete in many cases due to the absence of emails, postal codes, structural unit contact registries, route maps etc.), general information concerning structureinformation (incomplete in many cases due to the absence of information on functions of structural units, the absence of information on contact details of director of structural unit, emails of structural units etc.) and news on activities one of the major and sufficient factor for website users in order to create impression on general activity of authority by means of Internet. While the entity of public authorities existing under the system of Ministries of Justice and the Ministry of Finances of Georgia show the best eTransparency rate in Georgia with relatively standardized and abundant proactively published information, the aforementioned rate unfortunately does not exceed average 25% (highest point 44% in case of the official web-page of National Bureau of Enforcement) of the minimal standard of public information to be proactively published elaborated on the basis of studies implemented by IDFI.

The overall significant negative tendency of proactive disclosure of public information in Georgia can be nominally divided into two interconnected categories: the failure of updating the information and the failure of archiving the out-of-date information. The interested user in most cases can find outdated databases of legal acts, information on programs or projects implemented, information concerning state procurements and vacancies etc., there are significant amount of cases where the information on structure or even the news archive can be found obsolete on various web-pages of government bodies. On the contrary, in different cases the information on activities of public authority maintains only the status of current news, while the information older than two or three years can be irreversibly removed from web-sites by the authorities. Therefore, IDFI deems one of the most important issues the specific regulation of updating and archiving of public information to be proactively published in future perspective of legal regulation of eTransparency issues in Georgia.

The studies also revealed that there is the tendency of presenting the reports on authorities’ activities in the form of annual reports but no tendency of quarterly reporting by means of web-pages. The aforementioned can also be applied to statistical information and information concerning financing and expenses presented on the minority of web-pages. Hence, the interested users have to wait for the end of the year to find out information on different activities of the authority implemented in specific quarter in the form of report. The practice of quarterly reporting is neither presented with regard to information on participation in state programs and projects.

But in any case, the most significant lack of information on public authorities’ web-pages revealed during the two year of permanent studies is the overall lack of information pertaining to public information disclosure and information concerning financing and expenses. The interested user in most cases simply can not obtain the information on full name, position and contact details of an officer responsible for ensuring a free access to public information, the existence of whom the article 36 of General Administrative Code of Georgia clearly defines for any public authority. In addition, the interested user shall definitely have difficulties in finding up-to-date and complete information concerning authority’s allocations from a state budget, information concerning its revenues and expenses and information on salaries of public servants.

When talking on positive tendencies in field of eTransparency of executive branch of Government ofGeorgia, those tendencies can be traced in different directions. First of all, the process of creation and the fact of existence of the official web-pages of the majority of government agencies emphasizes the desire of Georgian Government to use Internet as a tool of information disclosure and means of communication with the society. While the fact of willingness to improve the transparency rate of official web-pages can be based on readiness for co-operation expressed by most of public authorities during the process of implementation of monitoring by IDFI. The Ministry of Justice, National Bureau of Enforcement, the Ministry of Environment Protection, National Environmental Agency, State Procurement Agency, Enterprise Management Agency, Ministry of Finance, Financial Analytical Service, Georgia Revenue Service, National Statistics Office etc. – this is the incomplete list of government bodies which co-operated on various stages of monitoring with IDFI in order to improve the transparency rate of their official web-pages. It is also worth mentioning that the number of other public authorities before receiving the recommendations from IDFI also showed the positive tendency in finding ways of improvement of their eTransparency environment on their own.

The purpose of the given article was to show those general objective tendencies of proactive disclosure by government bodies in Georgia which emphasize the need of standardization of issues of proactive disclosure and its legal regulation, while in no way the studies can be deemed as an indicator for the degree of deliberate unwillingness of government bodies to publish any piece of public information on their web-pages. The only negative factor remains the urgent need of adoption of the unified legal act which shall regulate the requirements for the proactive disclosure of public information for bodies of executive branch of Government of Georgia.