The faction intends to call in the President of the National Bank, Natia Turnava; the Head of the Competition and Consumer Protection Agency, Irakli Lekvinadze; and the Executive Director of the National Statistics Office (Geostat), Gogita Todradze.

As Giorgi Sharashidze, one of the faction’s leaders and a member of the parliamentary commission on prices, told InterpressNews, hearing from the heads of these three institutions is essential to obtain a complete picture—something that cannot be achieved by speaking only with the business sector.

According to Sharashidze, they will submit a written request to the commission on this matter tomorrow.

“From the very beginning, we said that this commission should not be limited to communication with businesses. So far, it has only summoned representatives of business companies and received certain information from them—the commission has not done anything else yet. For a complete picture, it is necessary to summon institutions that are directly responsible for this issue.

The National Bank is responsible for inflation, the Competition Agency is responsible for ensuring fair competition, the Consumer Protection Agency safeguards consumer rights, and the Statistics Office is very important because if there is any kind of manipulation in statistics, the overall picture changes. In our view, these three institutions are a priority. Without hearing from them, any conclusion the commission reaches will be incomplete, as it would rely solely on information from businesses, while the primary responsibility largely lies with the state.

High prices are the responsibility of the government—through the National Bank, the government itself, the Competition Agency, and so on. Businesses also bear some responsibility, and there may be certain agreements among them. If such agreements exist, the Competition Agency should address this directly. Businesses themselves are unlikely to admit to such arrangements—that is precisely why the Competition Agency exists.

We are summoning the heads of these three institutions because this is an issue of such importance that it cannot be addressed only at an operational level through limited discussions,” Sharashidze said.

He added that so far the request has been made verbally, but it will be formally submitted in writing tomorrow.

“We will submit a written request to the commission to ensure these summonses take place. If they are not invited, that will be the commission’s responsibility, because we are dealing with rising prices.

So far, we have raised this verbally several times during commission sessions, and tomorrow we will submit it in writing as well,” Sharashidze noted.