Friday, December 5, 2025

Saakashvili 'bought 25 000 SIM cards to build Facebook support'

Nodar Khaduri - Irakli Alasania - 2013-03-07
Finance Minister Nodar Khaduri (left) and Defense Minister Irakli Alasania inspecting a military camp earlier this month. (Ministry of Defense.)

TBILISI, DFWatch–Defense Minister Irakli Alasania Thursday told parliament that the defense ministry last year purchased 25 000 SIM cards for mobile phones in order to build up Facebook support before the election.

Speaking during a meeting with the defense committee

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Military tops enriched themselves: Alasania

Nodar Khaduri - Irakli Alasania - 2013-03-07
Finance Minister Nodar Khaduri (left) and Defense Minister Irakli Alasania. (Ministry of Defense.)

TBILISI, DFWatch–The government accuses former officials during Saakashvili’s time in power of having embezzled state money in order to purchase luxurious cars and unnecessary apartments.

The apartments were discovered at military bases which are in a

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Tbilisi mayor fails to appear for questioning

gigi ugulava
“If anyone has illusions that I am leaving and won’t come back, I will tell them that I cannot grant such a pleasure to Ivanishvili, Kbilashvili, Tsulukiani and the others,” says Tbilisi Mayor Gigi Ugulava. (Interpressnews.)

TBILISI, DFWatch — Tbilisi mayor and staunch Saakshvili ally Gigi Ugulava failed to show up for questioning at the Finance Ministry’s Investigative Service today.

He was called to explain himself regarding a case of suspected embezzlement of five million lari

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Petitioning to decriminalize white collar crime

Vano Merabishvili
The National Movement Party’s Secretary General, Vano Merabishvili, says Georgia’s economy is in an alarming state. (Interpressnews.)

TBILISI, DFWatch — The party of President Mikheil Saakashvili has started a campaign to gather signatures in support of his initiatives about tax amnesty and decriminalization of financial crime.

The president presented his new initiatives to the government a few days

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Top-level corruption was rife in Georgia: NGO

Gia Khukhashvili, director of Georgian Development Research Institute. (Interpressnews.)

TBILISI, DFWatch — Just as the Inter RAO corruption scandal is jolting the political scene in Georgia, a Georgian think tank claims to have revealed three further cases of what is called high level corruption.

The Saakashvili government has been credited with having effectively

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Risk of corruption in Georgia

“Georgia is number one country fighting corruption”- we frequently hear this message from Georgian Government. Government representatives talk about the achievements in fighting corruption but their opponents underline number of failures in this regards. There are also talks about elite corruption as well and some people think such kind of corruption exists in the upper … Read more