Lasha Khutsishvili denies report of Radio Freedom

Tbilisi: Georgian Finance Minister Lasha Khutsishvili responds to an article published by Radio Freedom. Minister in a Facebook post writes that the article is a manipulation of facts.

It is to be added that the alleged article provides official statistics to confirm that Georgia have an unnatural increase in imports of specific dual-purpose goods in Georgia (only from one country is being imported) and that these goods from Georgia could have not been imported into a sanctioned country. 

The minister also revealed data from the report as well. He also stated that “It’s very hard for official statistics to call it a mistake when all this information is so easily available and it’s obvious that the import of imported goods does not even exceed the average domestic consumption. 

However given that the article also includes information that Russia managed to buy several billion dollars worth of illegal goods in Georgia while the value of the above imports with Georgia does not even exceed 250 thousand dollars in total.

As per the minister Georgia has fully established appropriate mechanisms for effective control against the evasion of sanctions about which our partners at the international level are fully informed. Among them the period cited in the article was evaluated during the impostion of international sanctions coordinators to Georgia and the systems established by Georgia for the enforcement of sanctions received a high rating, which was also made public.

He further added “We can’t ignore the information in this article about statements made by senators at a meeting in the US Senate. An official statement was made by the Revenue Service of the Ministry of Finance. The information presented to the committee regarding Georgia does not reflect officially confirmed data at all and shows an essentially different picture from reality. The Department of the Treasury is working closely with all US sanctions enforcing bodies and we have not received any information (still waiting) that would in any way support these assumptions”.