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The President praises Georgia

By Salome Modebadze
Wednesday, August 3
“The more I travel the more I affirm that we have passed other countries. We have built all these sky-scrapers to highlight our non-corrupt, transparent and effective democratic state which serves not the state authorities but ordinary people,” President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili said, distributing the first five electronic Identification Cards to citizens in Batumi on August 1.

Acting in the framework of “public democracy” the President personally gave cards to people whom “Georgia belongs to”. “This act emphasizes that the Government is for people and not vice versa,” Saakashvili said stressing that in any other country the first ID card would have been given either to a President, monarch or Prime Minister. “But that’s not the case in Georgia; we have a very special psychology - we give first identification cards to our citizens to underline that we want everything for people not the Government,” he stated.

Explaining the importance of the innovative project the President spoke to the audience of other ongoing reforms. Pointing out that an important part of Georgia is being occupied, 10% of people are IDPs and the country has faced great destruction and failure for years, while the President praised the achievements of the country with its “modern generation". Talking of Georgia as the Number 1 country in the world for business, Saakashvili praised the ease of bureaucratic procedures and doing business; security; purity; non-existence of corruption and criminality which “no other country” has yet achieved.

To emphasize the special features of Georgia the President gave an example of customs procedures where the ordinary agents were exchanged with young models. “When the girls smiled and welcomed the drivers of transport lorries at the borders they finished checking in seven minutes on average, thus showing the effectiveness of the process,” the President said, stressing that “this is an example of state technology” against corruption in the country.

“If you don’t want to have a state with order as its main value you will face pollution, danger in the streets, corrupt police and a hard life like the 90% of countries have throughout the world,” Saakashvili warned the audience. Saakashvili also discouraged the “street mentality” as the way for getting authority on others, emphasizing that no one can assault others. Praising talent and hard work as the main ways for achieving success, he hoped that no hard times would ever return to Georgia because “we have left this behind, and the future generations should keep us from going back”.