Local media: MEGOBARI Act to be discussed today

Opposition aligned TV channels Mtavari Arkhi and Formula have reported that the US Congress will consider the MEGOBARI Act today.

The Mobilising and Enhancing Georgia’s Options for Building Accountability, Resilience, and Independence (MEGOBARI) Act was introduced in May in response to Georgia’s foreign agent law. It mandates further sanctions against Georgian officials as well as funding for Georgian media and civil society.

Formula reported that ‘bill author Joe Wilson recently announced that the MEGOBARI Act will be reintroduced once the new Congress is sworn in, which is expected to happen today’.

‘This will be one of the first bills that the renewed composition of Congress will consider,’ Mtavari Arkhi reported.

‘A press conference is also scheduled for today by the author of the MEGOBARI Act, Republican Congressperson Joe Wilson, who directly and emphatically states that American sanctions should apply not only to oligarch [Bidzina] Ivanishvili, but also to his family members’.In December, former Georgian Ambassador to the US Batu Kutelia said that a vote on the MEGOBARI Act would be ‘the first item on the agenda’ when the new congress reconvenes in January.