The decision by the former Georgian President was made during Friday's meeting of the regional administration, where reports were presented by officials from the department for internal auditing and the department for interacting with law enforcement agencies to prevent and expose corruption.
The first department reported that they'd conducted just three audits in the past year, while officials from the second body admitted that they hadn't exposed any graft cases.
Saakashvili reacted angrily to the reports, saying that he regularly receives bribery-related complaints from citizens.
"People bemoan that they have to pay for any certificate and that speeding up the process of obtaining a certificate costs twice as much. Investors complain that getting each and every permit is accompanied by extortion, and you mention just some irregularities. We have a catastrophe as far as administrative services are concerned," he said.
Adding that he had wasted an hour of his personal time, he ordered the immediate liquidation of both departments, firing 21 employees. Saakashvili promised to hand anti-corruption powers to representatives of the public and provide an office in the regional state administration for the purpose.
At home, Saakashvili is wanted on charges of murder, the embezzlement of millions of dollars of government funds, masterminding an armed attack against a legislator, and abuse of power. In 2014, Georgia’s Chief Prosecutor’s Office asked the Ukrainian Prosecutor’s Office to take Saakashvili into custody and extradite him to Georgia, but the Ukrainian side refused to cooperate.
