Georgian Parliament Adopts Draft on Gov’t Structural Changes

The Parliament of Georgia adopted the draft on the structural reorganization of the government with the first reading on Wednesday.

The draft consists of 99 projects and was supported by 82 MPs against 2.

As a result of the structural changes, the number of ministries will be reduced from 18 to 14.

Particularly, the Ministry of Environment will now form part of the Ministry of Agriculture, while the Ministry of Culture and Monument Protection will merge with the Sports Ministry. However, the youth component from the Ministry of Sports will move to the Ministry of Education.

Furthermore, the Energy Ministry will form part of the Ministry of Economy, which will also include the Natural Resources component of the Ministry of Environment Protection.

After the changes, the Security and Crisis Management Council will be abolished, and under the supervision of the Prime Minister, the Emergency Situations Management Service will be created.

The government has withdrawn the project on the merger of the State Security Service and the Foreign Intelligence Service. It means that these two structures will continue working autonomously as before.

The government reorganization does not imply optimization of employees, as only 6 civil servants have been dismissed in the wake of the structural changes. This means that the reorganization will not bring any economic benefits, as was announced by the Georgian Dream (GD) ruling team.

By Thea Morrison