Giorgi Godabrelidze

Giorgi Godabrelidze was born on 14 March 1970 in Tbilisi, capital of then-Soviet Georgia. After graduating from high school, he started working at the state-owned Sakargromshen construction company, where he stayed through his university studies. In 1993, he graduated from the Georgian Technical University with a degree in electrification and mining operation, and in 1994, he received a secondary diploma from Tbilisi State University in international business.

After a brief stint as a radio host in the state-owned Teleradio of Georgia company, he became Deputy Governor of the private Tbiluniversal Bank, one of Georgia's few privately owned commercial banks in the years that immediately followed the fall of the USSR. In 1997, he joined the public service as head of youth affairs at the Mtatsminda Prefecture in Tbilisi. In 2000, he became head of youth affairs for the City of Tbilisi.^[1]

Giorgi Godabrelidze is married to Tatia Tusiashvili.^[2]

Giorgi Godabrelidze was elected to the Tbilisi City Assembly during the 2002 local elections. A little over a year later, he was appointed Deputy Minister of Finance following the Rose Revolution that led to the resignation of President Eduard Shevardnadze and the rise to power of the pro-Western Mikheil Saakashvili. Serving under Minister Zurab Noghaideli, he was appointed as chief of the Customs Department upon the dismissal of Levan Kitsauri, who was fired by Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania for failing to tackle corruption and smuggling. In his introductory speech, Zhvania told Godabrelidze he would have "three months" to put an end to corruption or face dismissal himself.^[3]

In the first months of his mandate Giorgi Godabrelidze had to face the 2004 Adjara crisis, during which local authoritarian leader Aslan Abashidze refused to cooperate with the central government. On 6 April Godabrelidze visited Adjara to inspect the Sarpi customs checkpoint and the Port of Batumi, just as Abashidze sought customs autonomy.^[4] He also sought to pressure Russia into enforcing a 1993 bilateral agreement that made it responsible to prevent freight transit through the Roki Tunnel, one of Georgia's main points of contention in the conflict in South Ossetia.^[5]

Godabrelidze was routinely criticized by his own government. On 8 October 2004 president Saakashvili threatened him with dismissal until his department brought in 20 million GEL in revenues within a month (the Customs Department would bring in 25 million GEL in reported revenues in that timeframe). He also accused Godabrelidze of not doing enough to fight against corruption, stating during a televised cabinet meeting, "We don't need a chief that fails to eradicate corruption in customs."^[6] He repeated similar criticisms two days later during a press conference.^[7] Giorgi Godabrelidze also faced criticism for overstaffing, although the department chief claimed that staff reduction were not possible because of existing legislation.^[8] By the end of 2004, while the Customs Department had doubled its revenues and brought in 150 million GEL, it remained the most corrupt public agency according to the government's own report.^[9] On 2 February 2005, he was dismissed and replaced by Deputy Finance Minister Zurab Anteladze, while he took the Deputy Finance Minister post himself.^[10]

In the Finance Ministry he was involved in a 2007 tax reduction plan.^[11] He was considered by observers to be an "hawk" in the Georgian government's policy towards Russia, calling on Tbilisi to demand from Moscow 1 billion GEL in outstanding debts related to unpaid water and electricity fees for its military bases in Batumi and Akhalkalaki.^[12]