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Monday, October 29, 2007, #206 (1473)
With voters feeling the pinch from rising consumer prices, the government needed to explain what was going on and what it will do to fix it. The price increases, the president said in a televised cabinet meeting last week, were due to worldwide trends and nefarious homegrown monopolies. Accusing rich businessman of lining their pockets by ripping off poor voters is a tried and true weapon in the populist arsenal. Talk of monopolies and unfair business looks likely to lead to accusations against political opponents—both in the government and the opposition. Singling out Arti Group, run by a close associate of arrested ex-minister Irakli Okruashvili, and a sugar factory, the president demanded that monopolies be broken up for the sake of the country. Is there an agency to do that? he asked the assembled ministers. There is, he was told. It must not be doing a very good job, the president declared, abruptly decreeing that the Finance Ministry’s anti-trust arm be dismantled and replaced with something more effective. State Minister for Reforms Coordination Kakha Bendukidze, the architect of Georgia’s aggressive privatization drive, welcomed the initiative. Economic Development Minister Giorgi Arveladze, however, later said the president’s command to do away with the current anti-trust agency cannot be carried out overnight. There are laws to be observed, he pointed out, but parliament should be taking up the issue shortly. Opposition politicians, meanwhile, say the government is only going after the monopolies not in their control. The Saakashvili administration is in control of the country’s businesses, alleged Democratic Front MP Kakha Kukava, as only the government has the sort of power necessary to hold a monopoly. It’s this government, oppositional Industrialist MP Zurab Tkemaladze chipped in, that allowed monopolies to form. State Minister for Reforms Coordination Kakha Bendukidze, he continues, did away with the country’s more effective anti-trust watchdog, liberalized the marketplace and otherwise set the stage for single businesses to consolidate control. Indeed, some government figures may be in trouble as the anti-monopoly campaign gets underway. The president explicitly warned MPs against passing legislation favoring big bad business; MP Gigi Tseretli’s name is on suspect law regarding the salt industry, according to the newspaper Versia. The Saakashvili administration may be willing to go after its own party members in the fight for lower salt prices, and the opposition will do what it can to pin the blame for rising prices on government policy and corruption. Georgian voters, however, won’t be impressed for long if merely political measures fail to bring down price tags a notch or two. |
Where the fight against monopolies will lead