Fighting Temptation ... the Georgian Example for Africa to follow
By Plamen Monovski, CIO Renaissance Asset Managers When the prime minister comes to sell you an IPO, you, the investor, take the meeting. When that prime minister turns up with
no bodyguards and shows remarkable knowledge of the company he is promoting, you, the investor, take notice. When Nika Gilauri, the premier of Georgia, tells you that the prosperity of his country has been achieved because it has become one of the “least corrupt” countries in the world, you, the investor, take note. But it wasn’t always like that. After the demise of the USSR, Georgia was not only one of the most corrupt of the former-Soviet republics, it was one of the most corrupt countries in the world. Bribe-to-drive was the norm; police stopped cars at least twice an hour to extort a non-trivial sum of money. The then-interior minister infamously quipped: “Give me petrol only. My people will take care of their own salaries.” Being
a traffic cop was so lucrative that you had to pay ...