Georgia has officially announced the dissolution of the Anti-Corruption Bureau, a week after rumours suggested that either its head, Razhden Kuprashvili, had been dismissed or that the agency would be absorbed by others within the system.
Parliamentary Speaker Shalva Papuashvili announced the abolishment of the agency on Monday, stating that the bureau’s functions will be transferred to the State Audit Office by 2 March 2026.
The Anti-Corruption Bureau and its head Kuprashvili have been instrumental in the Georgian government’s crackdown on civil society and independent media. In early November, Indigo became the latest media or civil society organisation to be audited by the bureau under the law on grants — a law that prohibits organisations from receiving donor funding without government approval.
‘The fight against corruption is one of the government’s top priorities’, Papuashvili said, according to IPN, clarifying that the Anti-Corruption Bureau is ‘currently essentially tasked with collecting and monitoring declarations of officials, parties, and non-governmental organisations’.
‘As a result of consultations with the government, a common view was formed that this function better fits the State Audit Office within the constitutional framework of public governance, as a higher and more independent constitutional body’, he said.
Papuashvili has also suggested that the bureau’s abolishment was a ‘step towards returning to the systemic arrangement to the constitutional framework’, which had been ‘dictated to us from the outside’.
Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze has similarly stated that the bureau was an ‘imposed, somewhat independent body’, but added that he was ‘not interested’ in commenting on the bureau’s dissolution as he was ‘busy with [his] work’.
Papuashvili also announced that the government intends to abolish the Personal Data Protection Service, also transferring its functions to the State Audit Office as of 2 March 2026.
On 11 November, opposition-leaning TV channel Formula reported that the Anti-Corruption Bureau’s head, Kuprashvili, had been dismissed.
Both Papuashvili and Kuprashvili denied the rumours, with the latter stating that he would remain the bureau’s head ‘as long as this agency exists’.
In parallel to rumours about Kuprashvili’s dismissal, Georgian media outlet Commersant cited sources as saying that parliament — fully under the ruling Georgian Dream party’s control — was preparing a ‘legislative initiative’ that would abolish the Anti-Corruption Bureau and have its functions be handed over to the State Security Service (SSG) and the Audit Office.
The abolishment of the bureau comes amidst an ostensible purge of former officials or figures associated with the ruling Georgian Dream party.
Most recently, Georgia’s former Prime Minister Irakli Gharibashvili ‘admitted to receiving illegal income over the years’ as part of a high-profile corruption case involving Gharibashvili and several other former high-ranking officials
Mikheil Gvadzabia
