Greetings!
First of all, I would like to greet you. I the representatives of the government services – all of you today to share the results of the last study we were told about. This is a very important study and I think it correctly emphasizes the achievements of the state apparatus of Georgia; hence, the achievements of every one of you in the recent years. The “Center of Democracy and Law” is a very influential international organization, headquartered in Canada. This is an organization which administers studies along with other influential international organizations every year. According to its latest results, Georgia has the second most effective and transparent state structure in the world, after New Zealand. This study was administered in 80 countries and based on its results France, Germany and Japan are below us in the ratings, not to mention Russia and its friends - Venezuela and Nicaragua, which are somewhere at the bottom.
I want to note that our rating and success is the result of the specific reforms that we have been implementing together. Your work is the reason I am proud of every one of you. Think about where we were 6 years ago and where are we today; even the quality of police work or the conditions of the ladies who worked at the passport offices. I remember even now, what a terrible building I entered to get some documents when my second son was born. But now look at our Public Service Halls m in which these services are very simplified.
The foreigners are surprised when we take them on the tours of these Public Service Halls. Look at our customs mechanisms. They work perfectly. Years ago I personally visited the customs check points in order to resolve the injustice there. I fired an entire personnel as well as the Prime Minister.
As a result of implemented changes and reforms we received well-accommodated roads, on which we have check points where it is possible to register Cargo in seven, nine, ten minutes. Look at the process of acquiring construction licenses. It has become very simplified.
Why is there so much construction in Georgia today in spite of the crisis? Because in order to obtain a construction license in Ukraine you need minimum 2 to 3 years and in Russia 5 to 6 years. In Georgia it takes maximum 1 day if of course the blueprint satisfies the standards.
I want to remind you that two years ago I asked you to go to the regions and make exhibitions, presentations and show people what each Ministry, City Hall or a town ship as well as each one of you is doing. You probably remember that many of you looked at this idea with a surprise, because it wasn’t aimed at PR. We did this at a time when there were no elections. Back then, the main goal of my idea was to help you form an attitude that you are serving the people and the Georgian society. You were there to smile and help the people within the scope of the improved service.
Achieving this result was not an easy affair, because we all understand that replacing employees is not an easy process. Too many merited people who had been working for 15, 20, 25, 30 years in the same place and were fired because of the reorganization in various government bodies and that is painful. I understand their problems, physiological traumas, and stress.
One day you wake up and you don’t go to work at the job you loved anymore. That’s why we approach the situation more carefully now, because on one hand a mistake may have happened then but on the other hand, social mobility is one of the main criteria of democracy and advancement.
Why is Georgia the only country in Eastern Europe to which more people return than leave? The only exception was 2008 and that is also controversial.
The reason for returning to Georgia is the fact that new opportunities have appeared. It is my desire to make these opportunities available for people of every generation. That’s why we should constantly be in the process of re-training and raising our qualification. It is true that we are still not rich; we still have to travel a long road. However, we now have real opportunity to develop and this opportunity appeared because we repressed corruption. 6 years ago, 99% of Georgians said that they encountered corruption, but now this margin decreased to 0.2%. This means that corruption practically disappeared, but the worst thing that can happen to us is satisfaction by our achievements. The results of studies, saying that we have the most effective state structures, has already been published and we can now lay down and brag that we are the best country. We can be proud of the study of the European Union saying that crime is at the lowest possible mark in Georgia. We can also say that Georgia is the top country in all these directions and we can try to keep these results as they are.
I have summoned you today to tell you that working to keep these results means stopping the development and turning into sough. The only way to move forward is the constant reforms and advancing in this direction. Of course our people are the main reason of these reforms and everything is being done for them. The bureaucracy was simplified in the name of people as well as corruption defeated.
People supported our reformist coarse many times during elections. But I repeat one more time, the day we stop working hard, will be the day our advancement stops and that’s why we need constant movement, reforms and new changes. This is the goal of all of you. We always have to be ahead, so the wave that can drown us will never catch up to us. The current international environment is very tense. There is an economic crisis everywhere and after reviewing the growth rates, we are the only country the economy of which is predicted to grow by approximately 7% this year. This will happen at a time when Turkey has halved its economic indicators, as well as Russian and the countries of Europe. Our indicator will rise against the world trends. The reality is as follows: the Economic situation around us is very tense, but why are we still growing with all of this in our background? Because we gained the experience in competitive conditions in the right moment – what others do not have. First of all, this was achieved by our strong government apparatus and absence of corruption. But we need to keep these indicators alive as well as improve them in the future. That’s why we have never worked harder to improve your conditions. The government employees have salaries of 800, 700, 500, 300 GEL (people may even get less in the private sector) and I know that this may not be enough, but in spite of this, they work around the clock. People are not assessed only by their material means. We have never needed your help in the process of mobilizing the public. We are the second country in the world in terms of government effectiveness and transparency. Despite this fact many people said that we have no more corruption, but there is still no transparency. The above-mentioned studies proved that we are on the second place in the world in terms of receiving information and budget spending transparency.
By the way, people often say that elite corruption still exists in Georgia. You know well that you are not corrupt. You are the representatives of Ministries, Mayor’s offices, Townships and the Government Chancellery. Who will a Minister use for corrupt affairs? – the Minister can use you. If your Minister summons you or your superiors and tells them to do something unethical or unlawful quietly, that’s it. He will never ask you to do honest things again.
Our cleanness is based on the fact that every employee, starting from the superiors, is dependent on others and everyone supports each other. That’s our apparatus and our working style.
When there was an earthquake in Racha we worked for several months and overcame all of the obstacles, which no Georgian Government has been able to do in the past. You all know what it means when all of you go and participate in the vintage together. You all know what it means when there is a disaster and all of you gear up to fight it.
We should understand this if we want to overcome unemployment and poverty, achieve the unthinkable, and outperform ourselves. In the end, what the international ratings say should not be our main motivator, but instead, what people say about us in the surveys.
Our success will mean making these processes irreversible. Just like our state apparatus, the entire state system as well as the political and public life should be based on the rule of law. This will be our legacy. We will be proud that we have achieved this together. Nobody will be able to ignore these rules or break the law. We have defeated the state corruption and we shall absolutely defeat the political corruption. We should completely destroy the corrupt mentality and free the memory of our society from it. That’s when I will say that we have achieved our goal.
I congratulate you one more time on the results of this study. I haven’t been so happy in a long time.
I will see you at our next meeting to discuss our next success.
Thank you.