On March 16, the anti-opposition Facebook page “Political Absurdity” published a post stating that it is still unknown where the funding of Georgian non-governmental organizations comes from, asserting that they are hiding their funding sources. Attached to the post is a photo showing specific members of the civil society, such as Giorgi Burjanadze, former Deputy Ombudsperson, Eka Gigauri, Director of Transparency International Georgia, Baia Pataraia, Director of Sapari and Giorgi Tabagari, former Director at Tbilisi Pride.
Notably, the page has sponsored the mentioned post.
The claim that the funding sources of Georgian non-governmental organizations are unknown and they avoid making this data public is false. In fact, information about ongoing and completed projects, funding sources, and donor or partner organizations is available on the organizations’ websites. In addition, the mentioned information is available in the eAIMS database created by the Ministry of Finance.
Information about the non-governmental organizations, where the people in the photo work or worked in the past, as well as the sources of funding of most of the non-governmental organizations operating in Georgia, is available to any interested person on their official websites.
Giorgi Burjanadze held the position of Deputy Public Defender of Georgia from 2018 to 2023, and currently works at the US Embassy in Georgia. According to Article 25 of the Organic Law on the Public Defender of Georgia, the Office of the Public Defender is financed from the budget of Georgia in the amount that ensures the proper performance of its functions. The website of the Office of the Public Defender provides information on financing and cost estimation. The “Projects” section provides information about current and completed projects and their donor and partner organizations.
Eka Gigauri has been the executive director of “Transparency International – Georgia” since 2010. On the website of the organization, there is a section dedicated to the sources of financing of their activities, where detailed information is given about donors and the amount of financing of both ongoing and completed projects.
Information about donors, finances, and expenses is also reflected in the organization’s annual reports. Reports from 2006 to 2022 are currently published in this section.
Baia Pataraia is the head of the women’s rights protection organization “Sapari”. On the website of the organization, the “Donors and Partners” section provides a list of funders and supporters of their activities.
Annual audit reports are also published on the organization’s website, detailing the funding received and expenses incurred for various projects. Audit conclusions for the years 2016-2021 are currently available. In addition, on the website of the organization, in the “Projects” section, information about current projects is constantly published, indicating where the financial support comes from.
Giorgi Tabagari was the head of the organization “Tbilisi Pride” until 2021, and currently he is the project manager of the global communications company Zinc Network. On the “Tbilisi Pride” website, in the “Donors” section, information about current projects, their financiers, and the amount of funding is constantly updated.
It should be noted that the Ministry of Finance of Georgia, together with the Office of the State Minister of Georgia for Integration into European and Euro-Atlantic Structures and the Administration of the Government of Georgia, has already created the eAIMS database, which gathers information about sources of foreign aid, funded projects and their implementing organizations, including non-governmental organizations. In the section “Projects” in the search system, after specifying the desired organization in the “implementing agency” column, it is possible to view information about current, planned, and completed projects, although it should be noted that the data is not updated for all organizations.
In addition, all non-governmental organizations send monthly declarations to the Revenue Service, and annual declarations at the end of the year. The monthly declaration will cover issues related to VAT, employee salaries, and their number, and the annual declaration will include information about the organization’s property.
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