Transparency International Georgia (TI Georgia) says parents accounted for more than 60% of the GEL 24 million in gifts declared by 379 public officials between September 2025 and April 2026. The declarations include cash, real estate, vehicles, weapons, and jewelry.
Officials declared GEL 11 million in cash gifts and more than GEL 12 million worth of real estate during the eight-month period.
TI Georgia found that real estate was the most common type of gift by value. A total of 100 officials received property worth more than GEL 12 million, including 48 residential houses and 69 land plots.
The organization says 233 officials declared GEL 11 million in cash gifts, averaging GEL 47,000 per recipient. Twenty-eight officials each received more than GEL 100,000. Officials also declared 28 vehicles and six firearms as gifts.
TI Georgia notes that many cash gifts were declared in foreign currencies. Of the GEL 11 million in cash gifts, the equivalent of GEL 5.6 million was received in US dollars and GEL 1.7 million in euros.
Parents accounted for GEL 14.9 million, or more than 60%, of the total value of declared gifts, followed by siblings with GEL 4.3 million, other relatives with GEL 2.4 million, and children with GEL 1.3 million, TI Georgia says.
TI Georgia says officials from 158 public institutions declared gifts during the reporting period. Employees of the Ministry of Internal Affairs received the highest total value of gifts, with 46 officials declaring GEL 2.3 million. They were followed by employees of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who declared gifts worth GEL 2 million, and the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture, where nine officials declared gifts totaling GEL 1.6 million.
The highest-value individual gift declarations were submitted by Tamar Dolidze, Deputy Head of the Internal Audit Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, who declared gifts worth GEL 930,060; former Khoni Municipal Council member Demur Sulaberidze, who declared GEL 900,000; Zurab Gozalishvili, Director of the Rural Development Agency, who declared GEL 800,000; and Health Minister Mikheil Sarjveladze, who declared gifts worth GEL 500,000, TI Georgia says.
Parliament Speaker Shalva Papuashvili responded to TI Georgia’s findings, calling the research “manipulation” and a “farce.” He accused the organization of deliberately presenting declared gifts as a scandal and described TI Georgia as a “weapon of hybrid war against Georgia.”
Papuashvili said the report concerns officially declared property and funds and argued that officials would not disclose illegal income in their asset declarations.
“We are talking about declared gifts. If something is illegal income, then no one would have declared it,” Papuashvili said.
