After the Soviet Occupation of Georgia a repressive institution - the State Security Service was created instead. The institution was originally part of the Ministry of State Security of the Georgian SSR and was repeatedly reformed and merged with the Ministry of Internal Affairs over the course of several decades before both ministries ultimately merged in 2003. Before the Georgian declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, the Republic had its own republican intelligence agency on the basis of the Committee for State Security (KGB), which was notable in part because the Georgian KGB was considered by the party leadership to be the most effective of regional branches of the KGB. The Georgian KGB was under the notable 30 year rule of Aleksi Inauri and Givi Gumbaridze for most of its existence.