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Today is International Anti-Corruption Day and while the Georgian government continues to make a big noise about its anti-corrruption work, just how serious is it about tackling big scale corruption?

There is no doubt that petty everyday corruption in Georgia has all but been eliminated. While once the primary reason for the police to be on the roads was to go "fishing" for bribes, the determined action of Mikheil Saakashvili and his team on coming to power at the start of 2004 ended that in almost all cases.

For ordinary people the benefit of that change is real and will be long-lasting.

And there should also be little doubt that much of the other, big-scale, corruption in Georgia has been stamped out.

Before and even after the Rose Revolution the province of Adjara was run by Aslan Abashidze (pictured, right) primarily as a personal money making operation (at one stage with the ideological cover being provided by Giorgi Targamadze - though there is no suggestion he was personally corrupt). That too was destroyed by the Rose Revolution.

Even some of President Mikheil Saakashvili's troubles with South Ossetia came about because he ordered interior ministry troops to destroy smuggling rackets and criminal markets in that breakaway region - the intention was good even if the implementation was heavy-handed and lacking strategic direction. However the OSCE's former senior police advisor in Georgia Marco Kubny was far from willing to give the Georgian side in the enclave a clean bill of health:

"Smuggling is impossible if there is no criminal network that links different crime groups with corrupt law enforcement officers and government officials. There are Georgian and Ossetian crime groups in Tskhinvali and Gori operating regardless of their ethnic origin and political orientation. There are accusations that even high level officials of several Georgian ministries might be directly involved in these criminal activities."

And this is not the only area where there is a suggestion or evidence of corruption or mis-appropriation of state resources at the highest level. Here are some more.

1. Imedi TV

On 7 November 2007 economic minister Giorgi Arveladze announced that President Mikheil Saakashvili had imposed a state of emergency and had ordered interior ministry troops to close down the Imedi TV station (see picture of their handiwork). Today he is the director-general there and the two events are certainly connected: after 7 November the state used all sorts of means to keep Imedi off the air - claiming, for instance, that it was used to break electoral law in the snap presidential election that followed the events of that day. After the death of Badri Patarkatsishvili, the station's founder and owner of its holding company, extremely dubious legal means were used to pass it on to new owners who then appointed Arveladze. There is no suggestion he has made any sort of corrupt payment to anybody and as Imedi almost certainly makes a substantial loss (see below) the motivation in controlling the station is political and not financial. But clearly he has a good job as a result of the decisions taken by a government he once served in and which is still full of his friends and colleagues. Nice work if you can get it.

2. Broadcasting funding

In October foreign minister Grigol Vashadze admitted that the commercial broadcasters Imedi and Rustavi 2 required "state aid" to stay on air. That probably means they get over 30 million Georgian Laris every year uin some form of subvention (eg through cash, over-priced advertising or property deals). But there is no legal basis for such payments. When challenged the president's spin doctor said he had meant tax breaks. But since being asked what tax breaks are available by another broadcaster the government have been silent.

3. Thames Steel/Georgian Steel

Rustavi in South West Georgia was once one of the major metallurgical centres of the Soviet Union. After the collapse of the unified economy the steel mill went into severe decline until Badri Patarkatsishvili invested in the plant and restarted production. His interests were then sold to the UK company Thames Steel Ltd. But when it tried to exercise management control by dismissing Joseph Kay - a shady pro-government figure also involved in the expropriation of Imedi - the courts intervened to block it. Subsequently the steel works were sold off to a creditor and Thames Steel were not able to act to save their investment having been blocked by the courts. Reports now suggest the plant is being stripped down for scrap.

4. Electoral fraud

The latest, and perhaps the most serious yet, allegation of the misuse of state funds for corrupt purposes is in the doctoring of the electoral rolls in Tbilisi ahead of next year's mayoral election.

Sozar Subari, the former human rights ombudsman and now a leader of the opposition Alliance for Georgia, has said that residents of the Georgian countryside are being promised as much as 80 GEL (about $48/€31) if they register and vote in Tbilisi. Subari says the aim is to get 48,000 votes for the ruling United National Movement (UNM) in this way. What is more it is also reported that the interior ministry has told prisoners' families they can get their relative spriung from jail if they deliver votes for the UNM and the Constitutional Security Department - the direct inheritor of the KGB in Georgia - has also been charged with securing votes.

Reportedly Gia Tortladze, the man tipped as the next justice minister, has told people documentary evidence exists to back up these claims.