Today, on December 5, Financial Monitoring Service of Political Parties of the State Audit Office held the presentation of the new web-site for providing the current findings of the monitoring of expenditures and incomes of the October 8, 2016 elections’ campaign and transparency of party’s financing.
During the elections’ period (June-October) total amount of contributions received by the parties and independent candidates was 29 212 382 GEL while the total amount of expenses incurred by them before the elections were 39 472 486 GEL. According to the declared incomes of parties, the biggest amount of contribution among the political unifications was received by “Georgian Dream” -- 19,005,219.00 GEL, next was “State for the People”-- 4,278,541.67 GEL, “United National Movement”-- 1,063,514.50 GEL, “Patriots’ Alliance” -- 1,019,650.10 GEL, “Free Democrats” -- 686,945.00 GEL. All other contributions received by election parties are 3,158,512.00 GEL.
As for declared expenses, during the elections’ period (June-October) total expenses borne by parties and independent candidates are following: „Georgian Dream“ – 22,212,663.00 GEL, „State for the People“ - 4,396,452.40 GEL, „Patriots’ Alliance“ - 2,391,046.00 GEL, „United National Movement“ - 2,524,362.00 GEL, „Free Democrats“ - 1,694,759.53 GEL and election expenses of other parties are - 6,253,204.00 GEL.
During the pre-election campaign, the State Audit Office studied legality of 1016 individual contributors and 84 legal entities contributions. By now, 120 persons are questioned, including contributors of „Georgian Dream“ -- 35, „United National Movement“ – 12, „State for the People - 42 and „Patriots’ Alliance“ - 18. 40 persons are called in for questioning in the SAO.
Within the framework of the monitoring of the pre-election period, the State Audit Office fined political unifications, including 7 contributors of „State for the People“ , the total amount of which is 187 000 GEL, 1 contributor of „Patriots’ Alliance“, in amount of 183 200 GEL. Persons for illegal charity in favor of the “Georgian Dream” are also fined by 8 000 GEL, 7 parties and 12 candidates are fined for failure to provide information.
For the ensuring financial transparency of parties, the State Audit Office, by the support of the Council of Europe launched new web-site - monitoring.sao.ge. This web-site will facilitate getting of information for the stakeholders. Moreover, the work on e-program of financial declarations of parties is being accomplished, which will be launched in January 2017. It will simplify declaring of information by parties as well as access to this information.
