51-year-old Dr. Avtandil Jorbenadze serves in the unique to Georgia position of State Minister, the highest role in the government after the President. His activities range from foreign policy negotiation, to working on the nation’s energy crisis to coordinating domestic reform.

This summer he was also in charge of an effort to resurrect the Citizens Union Party, the political group that had been President Shevardnadze’s power base, but had fallen apart during local elections held nationwide in June. Last month he sat down with The Washington Times for a wide-ranging
conversation.

Barry Jagoda, The Washington Times: Mr. Minister, let me ask you about your background, how were you educated, and what different jobs have you performed?

Dr. Avandil Jorbenadze, as Georgia’s State Minister, has wide ranging duties and responsibilities.

State Minister Avtandil Jorbenadze: With pleasure. Actually, I’m a medical doctor, I have a medical education. I’m a cardiologist. At different times I worked at military units in the medical service. Then I worked at Tbilisi Hospital No.1. After that I worked in the City Health Care Department and became Deputy Health Care Minister. In 1992 I joined President Shevardnadze’s staff. Later I was Minister for Health Care for quite a long time, about 8 years. For the last two of those eight I was both Minister of Health Care and Social Security. Now it has been six months that I have been promoted to the position of the State Minister of Georgia.

TWT: That is very impressive but I must say that I was astounded when I read in the newspaper someone, referring to you, suggesting that a medical doctor would not be competent to perform a leading role in government and could not be elected President.

State Minister Jorbenadze: Actually, my own profession is very interesting, the most humane. My ten years as Health Care Minister coincided with the period of the country when we introduced a number of reforms overall, as well as in the Health Care service. I was able to work with the World Bank and numerous American companies in developing reforms. One is the International Alliance for Health Care, headquartered in Washington, a contractor for US AID. I also had very close relationships with a number of American universities, working on the economic side of health care, economics being the foundation for it all. We worked on the issues of change from the Soviet order into a new one. On this we are constantly working on changing people’s mentality. We had to identify priorities, and then fix the problems attached to the priorities. Our first effort was to somehow satisfy the needs of the most vulnerable layers of the society. I was especially interested in initial health care.

Meanwhile we had to take care of decentralization of health care management, introducing democratic principles into the management, trying to hasten and facilitate the privatization process, encouraging the private sector and introducing new technologies in the field. All this was actually the formation of an entirely new system. The main problem was distribution of limited funds in a developing country, in a poor country with poor health care services. This was difficult.

We also worked closely with the Parliament because there was a need to create a legislative and legal foundation for all these activities. We need laws on patients rights on medical practices, including parameters for training and continuing education. In all this we were following the Western models and establishing links with those centers. We were trying to create a competitive environment where every individual practitioner would have maximum possibility to display their individual talents and to have maximum motivation. Those were very interesting and productive years. And then, when two others ministries were joined, Labor Security and Social Security, I had two additional extremely interesting and fruitful years. My duties were expanded to deal with employment problems, poverty, national economic development of the country, pension and social security mechanisms, wages and salaries and many other topics. One major conclusion was that fragmentary reform would have much less chance of success than would reform of a entire system.

TWT: It sounds like you are on a training program that should be required for all State Ministers. How do you assess the quality of services today? Not just in health, but in sanitation, general services and public administration by the government of Georgia. And, assuming improvements are needed, is the time frame for change years or decades?

State Minister Jorbenadze: Let’s start with the most important. If we do not achieve hastening the pace of economic development of the country, if we don’t manage to create a competitive economic environment, if we don’t stop smuggling and don’t decrease the level of corruption and if we don’t speed up the democratization process, and if we don’t have a more efficient government, with improved legislative functioning, if we don’t enforce the laws, then our problems will stay forever. The rights of education, health care, social security, etc. of the population of Georgia will always be violated. We need to prioritize all our problems and then try to eliminate these problems step by step and then we will see where we arrive at.

TWT: The voice of rationality?

State Minister Jorbenadze: This is reality. And of course deepening of the reform processes in all spheres. These reforms will help us to fight corruption.

TWT: Ah, now you use the c-word again in our conversation. A visitor hears this word often.

State Minister Jorbenadze: This is not only a word that you can see or hear, but you will even have a chance of feeling corruption. Because the greater part of our economic troubles is based on the fact that we have not created a proper business and investment environment for individuals because of corruption, because of many corrupt arrangement and shadow businesses.

TWT: Let me be a little bit more specific. I thought I would focus on one case, looking into electric utility, which at least in Tbilisi is in the hands of an American company, the largest American investment in Georgia. I have been told me that no matter who pays for the electricity at the wholesale market, there’s some guy who sends the electricity to favorite plants or regions, even when they often pay nothing. Who does this guy work for?

State Minister Jorbenadze: That is a deep problem. I can comment on this only widely. Actually, we’re facing two problems concerning energy security. During the last decade due attention was not paid to water resources which the country has in abundance. This is the principle error. And the other one is basic energy, with which we were linked and attached to the Russian system for both gas and electricity. For individuals more inclined to corruption it was more convenient to dominate the second system, the one tied to the Russian energy system. As a result we came to depend on these individuals to purchase the energy and make energy deals. During this period Georgia accumulated lots of debts, although they were mostly on paper, artificial. This is what created today’s mega problem. The system was a monopoly and when the privatization came it was too late, and it still be characterized as existing on a very high level of corruption.

TWT: This corruption is caused by past debts?

State Minister Jorbenadze: Exactly! Where consumers and the suppliers are in a very negative cooperation. Therefore we attach great importance to AES TELASI, the American company that entered our market. This was one giant step forward. And with the help of World Bank and other international organizations we started restructuring debts as soon as the market improved more or less. Other international companies have also been created. Dispatching and distribution fields have merged, both very significant structures, but the economic agreements between these two are still being formed. We have brought in an Irish company for overall management and we are preparing the whole environment for privatization, our final goal. Energy security is the main guarantor for the development and safety of the country, and we feel that we are on the right road.

TWT: Lets turn to politics. Now that you’ve assumed a larger role in political party work, how do expect the party function to support the government?

State Minister Jorbenadze: The processes taking place in countries that are in the transitional period are very interesting, leading to the development of the whole society as well as to the formation of groups to help build civil and political society. So far in Georgia these groups are still forming. So the creation of classical types of political parties has been hindered because social groups are not strong enough.

One of the largest social groups that we have is the poorest layer of the society. Those who can be called “middle class” are very small in number. But this is the layer that can guarantee the security of any state, the middle class itself and many other individuals and groups of people who are at the same level. There is a very thin layer of owners. About 5 percent of the business owners have managed to accumulate their wealth in a dishonest way. Every layer should have a party that would protect its interests. If we had that ideal situation then we would have clear-cut right wing, left wing and centrist parties. This is a crucial moment for social change and so we have decided to revive the party which we call the President’s party. The major aim of this party is cooperation with middle class. It will have an obvious right-wing orientation, but it will support those engaged in decent, honest business. It will support those who will be able to find their niche in the competitive environment. And we will try to create such environment.

TWT: What percentage of the population right now would you place in this business class?

State Minister Jorbenadze: I would say 30-35 percent of the whole population in Georgia. That means they get an income adequate to the work they do. These are teachers, medical doctors, people in small and medium size businesses, scientists. Besides, there are a number of people who are in different management spheres or in public service. These are quite interesting individuals. Perhaps 5 percent of this one-third have very big money. Many of them are hindering the reform process, they are the corrupt part of our society.

TWT: I wonder if the new party leader can find a governing majority in the population?

State Minister Jorbenadze: I hope I will. First of all, I’m pretty sure that if we manage to stimulate our State to carry out its obligations, to develop the economy, to decrease the level of poverty, to create a competitive environment; if we manage to improve even a little bit the quality of life for our population and somehow organize the social security service for the poorest layer, then of course people will support us.

TWT: How would you assess the support Georgia has received from the U.S., and what can be done to improve the Washington – Tbilisi relationship?

State Minister Jorbenadze: First of all, I must say that if it were not for the support of the USA during the last ten years, the problems would have been much worse. Your first stage of humanitarian aid helped our people survive physically. Now we are entering the second stage, the development program. It aims at the sectors of energy, health care, agriculture, military and many others. Here technical aid from the U.S. is very important, and, in some cases, this kind of expertise even exceeds that of a financial character. With this help we are able to determine a correct strategy for the development of different spheres and we are increasing the intellectual potential of the country developing links among scientific circles.

The non-governmental part of our civil society has actually has been created with the active support of the US government. These people have actively joined the political life of the country and they are persons with a new mentality who take an active part in the country management and problem resolution. They are freethinkers who are actively involved across-the-board. This has also been achieved with aid provided by the US.

As discussed the interests of a large American power company coincides with the interests of our national energy security. Georgia has become a partner of the United States, in part because our location joins the Middle Asia, Europe and Asia with the rest of the world. Georgia has a good chance of becoming a great leader merging regional programs and helping to take the process of democratization to a very high level. I would like to repeat that if we solve several important tasks, our country will become even more interesting. And we want our cooperation with the US to become of higher and better quality.

TWT: I’ve just come from an interview with your Minister of Agriculture who was speaking about very specific cooperative programs between the U.S. and Georgia. It is one thing to read that $90 million dollars came from American taxpayers to the government of Georgia, but much more enlightening to get a briefing on specific programs that seem to be working.

State Minister Jorbenadze: When I speak about programs, I mean country independence, democracy and a people with a new mentality and new interests. By the way, I know that a certain part of the Congress and part of the societies in post-Soviet countries do not approve of the American support for the processes of development. But the example of Georgia shows that an effective aid program has actually created a new State. This is the main thing. Yes, we have lots of problems, but we are solving them and it is we who must do this or no amount of aid will work. We do realize that.

TWT: Perhaps you should invite those skeptical Congressmen to come to Georgia?

State Minister Jorbenadze: With great pleasure. And we would invite them to see everything and for a very interesting discussion. The activities of the government of Georgia and that of President Bush’s administration corresponds both to the national interests of the US, and to the national interests of our country. It is a very interesting coincidence when the interests of two countries come so close.

TWT: Thank you, Dr. Jorbenadze.