PM Kobakhidze accuses donor organizations of trying to block strategic economic projects in Georgia

Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze on Wednesday accused specific donor organizations of artificially trying to block strategic economic projects in the country through NGOs.

In his interview with Public Broadcaster, PM Kobakhidze also blamed certain donor organizations for creating obstacles to fulfilling Georgia’s strategic goals, News.Az reports citing agenda.ge.

He stressed the recently adopted controversial law on transparency of foreign influence would make it “very difficult” for the donors to finance the alleged activities in the country.

Adopted last week by the Georgian Parliament, the law requires groups “considered to be an organization pursuing the interests of a foreign power” - determined by more than 20 percent of their funding coming from abroad - to be registered in the public registry with the status and publicize their received funding.

“Let's take the topic of hydropower plants. We have a strategic interest in building hydropower plants in this country to achieve our strategic goal of achieving more generation than consumption by 2030. This is important to ensure energy independence for our country”, he said.

“I am sure activities of specific NGOs will continue in the same direction, and it will be financed from outside. They will try in every way to prevent us from achieving this strategic goal of energy independence. When the funding in this area becomes transparent, this false environmental narrative will no longer be able to serve their anti-state goals”, the PM added.

News.Az