Tbilisi (GBC) - Legislative amendments initiated in the Georgian Parliament will toughen sanctions for violations of environmental requirements. The amendments to the “Code of Administrative Offenses of Georgia,” prepared by the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture, aim to expand the powers of the Environmental Supervision Department and create a deterrent effect on violations.
According to the explanatory note to the draft law, the current sanctions in a number of cases fail to provide a preventive function of administrative liability. The scope of the new regulation includes such large entities as: energy and industrial facilities, oil depots, mineral miners, metallurgical and chemical plants, infrastructure constructions and facilities that have wastewater.
The main financial sanctions provided for by the draft law:
- Activities without an environmental decision: will be fined from 25,000 to 30,000 GEL (under the current regulation, the sanction was from 7,000 to 10,000 GEL).
- Activities without a screening procedure: will be determined from 7,000 to 10,000 GEL, and in case of repeated violation - 20,000 GEL.
- Arbitrary change of operating conditions: Changing the conditions without a relevant decision will result in a fine of 25,000 to 30,000 GEL (instead of 7,000 - 10,000 GEL), and a repeated case will result in a fine of 50,000 GEL (the current sanction was 14,000 GEL).
- Failure to fulfill obligations and failure to apply: A person who does not apply to the agency for an environmental decision will be warned for the first time, and will be fined 5,000 GEL for a repeated violation.
- The legislative package also changes the rules of administration. In particular, employees of the Environmental Supervision Department are authorized to consider violations on the spot and issue a penalty receipt in cases where additional investigation is not required.
In addition, the agency will be able to publicly publish fine receipts on its website if the violator fails to submit the document twice. In such a situation, the receipt will automatically be considered submitted on the 30th day after publication.
According to the authors, tightening sanctions will also lead to an increase in state budget revenues, although the specific financial effect will be independent of the number of violations recorded.
