While for the whole world "GMT" stands for "Greenwich Mean Time" for us, people living in Georgia, it's "Georgian Maybe Time", because we have our own feeling for time!

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Georgian Police

Georgian Police: The most successful reform of Georgian government. According to Minister of Defense of Georgia the trust rate towards police increased up to 82%.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Corruption in Georgia

The fact that Georgia has been making a progress in developing is no news anymore. It holds leading positions in the lists of countries that have shown the most improvement in recent years. One of the key changes that had a huge impact on this progress were measures taken against corruption. Starting with police reform, education, health care and so on, Georgian government managed to get rid of rotten system, firing old staff and hiring new without "bad habits". As a result, from my point of view as a citizen, there is no corruption at the civil level. Although ordinary citizens don't face corruption in their daily life anymore, the so called elite corruption, involving mysterious deals, still exist at a higher level.

According to the Corruption Perception Index 2010, released on October 26 by Transparency International, Georgia ranks 68th out of 178 countries around the world. It's CPI score on a scale from 10(clean) to 0(corrupt) is 3.8.


What is the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI)?

"The CPI ranks countries/territories based on how corrupt a country’s public sector is perceived to be. It is a composite index, a combination of polls, drawing on corruption-related data from expert and business surveys carried out by a variety of independent and reputable institutions. The CPI reflects views from around the world, including those of experts living and working in the countries/territories evaluated."


It is also interesting to compare Georgia's rate with its neighbors. Turkey with a better condition ranks 56th with the score of 4.4, Armenia(2.6) is 123rd, Azerbaijan (2.4) is 134th, Russia (2.1) is 154th. Georgia even managed to show better results than some European countries, coming right after Italy which is 67th scoring 3.9, Georgia is ahead of Romania (69; 3.7) Bulgaria (73rd; 3.6) and Greece (78th; 3.5).

Nowadays, according to Georgian Legislation the punishment for receiving a bribe counts from 6 to 9 years of imprisonment and in case of extortion it can reach 11-15 years of prison. Not you only can be charged for receiving price incentives, but also for giving them. The punishment can vary from 2 and 5-8 years of prison or fine depending on the conditions of the crime.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Press Freedom Index 2010: Georgia ranks 100's


Reporters Sans Frontières, or as it is translated, Reporters Without Boarders have released their annual Press Freedom Index for 2010. According to Worldwide Press Freedom Index, Georgia ranks 100's out of 178 counties this year, while Armenia - 101 and Azerbaijan - 152. Comparing to 2009, Armenia and Azerbaijan are making slight progress, they ranked 111(Arm.) and 146(Az.) last year. Meanwhile Georgia lost its 81st place and moved to 100's.

Georgia showed its best in 2007 being 66th. Soon after the short war with Russia it lost its position, and ranked 120th already in 2008.

The leading countries this year were Finland - 1, Iceland - 2 and Netherlands - 3. Turkmenistan ranking 176, North Korea 178 and Eritrea 179, are listed the last. Russia holds 144th position this year.



How the index was compiled?


"The Reporters Without Borders index measures the violations of press freedom in the world. It
reflects the degree of freedom that journalists and news organisations enjoy in each country,
and the efforts made by the authorities to respect and ensure respect for this freedom.


A score and a position is assigned to each country in the final ranking. They are complementary
indicators that together assess the state of press freedom. A country can change position from
year to year even if its score stays the same, and viceversa...
."

Monday, November 1, 2010

Ahh...Tbilisi....

Another attractive ad of Tbilisi, Georgia.