95 Thousand GEL – Lost and Found Inside the MIA

On Friday, Georgia’s State Audit Office released its annual report on the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA). The report revealed that the MIA discovered an unspecified weapon that was believed to have been lost in the 2008 Russia-Georgia War, worth 95,900 GEL.

The report notes that this is not the first time valuable weapons have been lost due to sloppy inventory practices, and that it is a systemic problem within the MIA.

The State Audit Office attributes the mistake to poor accounting and reporting policies.

“There are the cases of delays in financial and accounting operations, which indicates a lack of communication between these structural units of the Ministry,” reads the audit report. The weapon was rediscovered on December 31, 2016. It had been stored in a division of the MIA for years, not inventoried, presumed lost after the war.

The report outlines the requirements for reporting non-financial asset losses. With the rediscovery of the weapon, the amount of lost MIA assets was decreased by nearly 95,900 GEL, but there is still approximately 5 mln GEL of debt remaining. The audit office calls this balance “unsolved and still active.”

The full report is available here (only in Georgian).

By Samantha Guthrie

Photo: Interpressnews