“Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit, for Theirs Is the Kingdom of Heaven,” Website of Gardabani District Administration Jokes
October 27, 2010
Manon Bokuchava, Kvemo Kartli
“Elect and Govern Yourself” – it was the main slogan of the municipal elections which suggested the citizens to go to polling stations. The society elected the local government but afterwards the second part of the slogan- “Govern Yourself” was removed from the agenda.
The elected self-governmental agencies started their activities calmly and away from people. Population of Rustavi, Gardabani, Bolnisi, Tsalka and Tetritskaro districts will never know when the municipal board holds sessions, what they are discussing unless they have telepathic skills.
The Organic Law of Georgia on Self Governance obliges the municipal board to inform the population about the date of session and spread information about the topics that should be discussed at the session several days in advance. Despite that, it does not happen in five out of total seven districts in Kvemo Kartli region.
Official websites of the municipal boards should be one form to announce the dates of board sessions and to inform people about topics of the session. According to the law, every decision shall be published on the website for the transparency of the self-governance. These requirements are satisfied only in Marneuli and Dmanisi districts. The administrations of those two districts implement all abovementioned obligations.
Gardabani municipal board introduces a new tendency in the Georgian self-governance system. When we visited the website of Gardabani municipal board, one page has the title: “Decisions of the Municipal Board” and there we can read Beati pauperes spiritu, quoniam ipsorum est regnum caelorum, that means “Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit, for Theirs Is the Kingdom of Heaven.”
It is difficult to guess what the moderator of the official website of Gardabani municipal board wanted to say but it is fact that the phrase does not expose the activities of the municipal board. Or, the board members think they do not have to do anything for the population because poor citizens will have the door of the heaven open.
Their website does not announce the dates of the board sessions like the website of the Rustavi city council. However, the members of the Rustavi city council enacted the resolution whose article 135 states: “Documents on the activities of the local self-governmental bodies and local officials shall be punished and ensuring their accessibility. 1. The office of the municipal board shall publish: “announcement of the place, approximate date, agenda, schedule and topics that should be discussed at the next session. The information shall be published at least seven days before the session. 2. The documents on the activities of the local self-government bodies and local officials shall be published on the website of the local self-governmental body according to the “resolution on the website of the self-governmental agency.”
Organic Law of Georgia on Self-Governance states in its article 5 that one of the main principles of the implementation of the self-governance is “publicity of the activities of the local self-governmental agencies” (article 5 – “d”).
“I have internet and I know the website of our city but I have never read the date of the board sessions in advance. Do you know what kind of texts I read on their website? The phrases which they used before the elections – Chikovani visited the asphalt pavement… they write about the activities of the municipal board in the same style. I wish to attend at least one session if they let me in. When is the next session scheduled? Why do not announce the date of the next session on TV when they do not publish information on the website?” asked a student from Rustavi Thea Tsiklauri.
Not only citizens but journalists also do not know the date of the sessions of Rustavi city council. The council chooses the journalists who can attend their meetings. However, the journalist of the humanrights.ge has not been on the list of the selected journalists for a long time.
As for the Tsalka municipal board, they do not have their official website now to publish public information. Officials of the Bolnisi municipal board think that the announcement of culture events is more important than other official events. In Tetritskaro district, they local official miss the past and they offer the visitors of their website information only about the topics which were discussed at the sessions in 2009 by the previous municipal board.
UNDP (UN Development Program) and Sida (Sweden International Development Agency) assisted the municipal boards and regional governor’s administration in Kvemo Kartli to create their website in order to increase publicity of the information.
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