Welcome everybody!

I require from all ministries and the local government to cut the red tape in relation with the public. We managed to coordinate the activities within the government and within the major agencies but I think problems with the direct contact with the people still persist.

None of the Ministers, except few exceptions, ever answer phone calls. The Prime Minister always answers phone calls, whoever is calling - including a common citizen. He knows how to say yes or know. You, by not knowing what to answer, are afraid and don't pick up the phones. This is not gossip; if I call you from a different phone number and not from mine, you never answer me, except Kakha Bendukidze [State Minister for Reform Issues]. I do not remember [Healthcare Minister Lado] Chipashvili answering any phone calls. You are not emperors; you are Ministers of small Ministries in a small country. You must answer any question [put forth by] our citizens and must always be among the people. Tbilisi Mayor [Gigi Ugulava] has started going to the office via subway and bus and I welcome this very much. We had the city mayors who for many years did not show up in the public without bodyguards and private cars. I call on the heads of every ministry to be always in contact with the public and be able to say yes or no. The main problem is that people are "tortured" when dealing with the local bureaucracy. It is a long and burdensome process to get any kind of permit.

Recently our MP opened a brewery in Natakhtari. Neither water nor energy was delivered to that brewery until the Prime Minister called three times. Just imagine how unprotected and poor an entrepreneur is who is not an MP and does not know Zurab Noghaideli.

There are no bureaucrats who take bribes, but at the same time there are bureaucrats who cannot make decisions. A scared bureaucrat does not take bribes, but he also does not want to do something useful. The reality now is that we have scared, inactive and unreasonable bureaucracies. Everybody must remember - Bribe-taking is punishable, not the initiative.

The second issue is the red tape - taking a certificate at the ministry of foreign affairs, long lines at the consular office, similar to the one in 90s. People are standing in long queues in bad weather and nobody is interested in fixing this problem.

Very good reforms are underway in the Ministry of Justice. But go and try to get a passport, for example, in Telavi [a town in the eastern Georgian region of Kakheti] and you will see how you will be tortured and how many times you will have to apply and see whether the revolution has occurred in this sector. Why did the [Rose] Revolution happen at all if a resident of any village would have a hard time in applying for a passport?

We should understand that these people are the voters who brought us here [into the government]. When you are sitting in your worm cabinet these people should not be tortured to get a simple aid. This concerns every sphere not to speak about selling a plant. One has to go through huge bureaucratic procedures to sell even a small plant. A man prefers to go to the market, lets take fifty times, to buy something rather than buy from the government, just because the government is an enactive body which can't take a decision even for itself. Selling the smallest shop is associated with big difficulties and huge procedures. We must learn to serve our people and understand that we are the government for the people and not just a government, which only speaks from television screens.

The measure of your activities are the people who get the silences, transect business, purchase a plant, go through the customs procedures, receive passport. Only then we will say that we have a good government. If you tell all these things to people from the television nobody will believe it.

Therefore, I demand form you not to hide in your cabinets. Every minister who hides in the cabinet will be sacked. We must constantly listen to people. This is the motto of our government and the revolution. I ask you to work in this direction.

We monitor the situation, permanently receive letters and know what is going on in the country.

We couldn't manage to timely give construction permits at the Mayor's Office. There are also are many problems in many other spheres.

I order the Prime Minister to take this issue under his control and simplify the procedure by the end of the year.

The measure of the performance of the civil servants should be the public satisfaction. Everybody can't be satisfied but when everybody is dissatisfied it means that the particular official does not work well.

Communications Office
of the President of Georgia