Audit Office Studies Popular Seminar Project After GD Suspects CoE Funding In Breach of Grants Law

Georgia’s State Audit Office started studying the funding of the Tbilisi School of Political Studies, a popular seminar project running since 1999, over a possible breach of Georgian grant laws, after pro-government media and Georgian Dream officials suggested that the Council of Europe may be funding the project by bypassing the law requiring government approval before grants can be disbursed. The review, the first such public case since the agency absorbed the functions of enforcing restrictive foreign funding laws following the dismantling of Georgia’s Anti-Corruption Bureau, follows days of attention from Georgian Dream officials and pro-government media over a recent session of the school held in Bakhmaro, a mountain resort in western Georgia.

“Monitoring regarding possible receipt of a grant by N(N)LP [Non-entrepreneurial (Non-commercial) Legal Person] Tbilisi School of Political Studies without the consent of the Georgian government has been launched by the Department of Transparency of Funds of the State Audit Office,” the agency said on September 21, noting that it will act within Georgian legislation, including the Law on Grants. For decades, the Tbilisi School of Political Studies has run seminars that have attracted political and civic leaders and professionals. The school has long been led by Armaz Akhvlediani, who served as an opposition lawmaker in 2021-2024. Initially running on the European Georgia party list in the 2020 elections, Akhvlediani later split with the party to become one of the opposition MPs who signed the EU-brokered April 19, 2021 agreement to end the parliamentary boycott. In its September 18 report, pro-government Imedi TV scrutinised the seminar over a possible breach of the grants law, with its crew arriving in Bakhmaro and putting…