Head of Saburtalo Military Recruitment Arrested on Corruption Charges
Earlier this week, the Investigative Service of Georgia’s Ministry of Finance arrested the Head of the Military Division of the Saburtalo Gamgeoba (district administration) on charges of corruption and accepting bribes.
If convicted, the former official, whose name has not been released to the public, faces six to nine years of jailtime under Article 338 of the Criminal Code. He is accused of soliciting and accepting a bribe in the amount of 700 GEL from a young man who asked to delay his call to compulsory military service. The defendant broke the law by using his official position for personal material gain, says the report from the Investigative Service. The arrest was made at the conclusion of a long-term operation conducted by the Investigative Service.
Many of the young men from middle- and upper-class families in Tbilisi have long known about the official’s corruption, a source, who asked to remain anonymous, told GEORGIA TODAY. The Head of the Military Division at the gamgeobas of the city’s different districts is responsible for calling the city’s young men up for service. He has the personal authority to decide which of the young men in his registration database will be recruited, and when.
In recent years, there has been significant criticism over Georgia’s compulsory military service system, including from inside the government. In 2016, then-Minister of Defense Tina Khidasheli unilaterally halted the Defense Ministry from participating in the compulsory military service program.
Two other agencies – the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Corrections – continued recruiting young men into compulsory service. In fact, only about 25% of eligible conscripts at the time served in the Defense Ministry. Khidasheli was removed from her post soon after the decision, and the move was overturned by her successor and current Defense Minister, Levan Izoria.
“The GAF [Georgian Armed Forces] doesn’t need servants who were forced to join it against their own will,” said Khidasheli in June 2016, explaining her decision.
Earlier this month, the Ministry of Justice decided that the penitentiary system will no longer be staffed with military conscripts, but by paid guards. In announcing the move, Head of Parliament’s Defense and Security Committee Irakli Sesiashvili explained that the transfer to a contract-based system will increase the capacity of service members in the defense and security sectors, with higher skilled and more dedicated staff.
Current Georgian law states that all men between the ages of 18 and 27 are eligible to be recruited into compulsory service, unless they can somehow find a way to exempt themselves. There is a long list of possible exemptions: medical disqualifications, being an only child, having at least two children of your own, religious accommodation, and those enrolled in an education program. These exemptions, coupled with the nature of conscripted service – low pay, poor living conditions, long, hard hours, lack of opportunities for professional development – lead to creative strategies for avoiding service. Opposition political party Girchi registered its own religious organization in order to ordain young men so they can claim a religious exemption as a priest in the Church of Biblical Freedom. Young men often stay enrolled in education until they hit the age of 27, getting multiple master’s degrees and unwanted PhDs, sometimes in fields completely unrelated to their career, barely attending lectures or completing assignments as they often must work full time to support themselves and their families. There are no exemptions for nationally valuable non-security-related jobs such as medical professionals, teachers, or other public servants. It is possible to pay to delay the onset of service until the age of 25 – at which point many young men who can afford it go abroad for some time, to work or study, taking their cultural and intellectual capital away with them. The system encourages corruption, fraud, and brain drain, and ensures only the most poorly connected young men, often from the regions, often from poor families, often from ethnic minority groups, serve their ‘compulsory’ time.
Georgia has made great strides against corruption in the last 10-15 years. In January, Transparency International released its annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), ranking Georgia 41 out of 168 countries. Georgia’s CPI score, however (a 58 out of 100, 100 meaning citizens perceive society as fully non-corrupt), has not significantly changed since 2012.
The compulsory military service system provides the perfect environment for corruption to fester and thrive. As Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo explain in their 2011 book Poor Economics, the risk of corruption is endemic in any government, but becomes more severe “when the government is trying to get people to do things whose value they do not appreciate,” and “when bureaucrats are underpaid, overworked, and not well monitored.” Both those conditions apply to this week’s bribery arrest. The charges, while disheartening, are not shocking for most Georgians who recognize the flaws in the current system of compulsory service.
By Samantha Guthrie
Image source: police.ge