Supervision Service Impedes Cartu Group to Continue Work in “Rostom King’s Palace”

Information Agency Pirveli

According to the Press Secretary of the magnate oppositionist Bidzina Ivanishvili, the Supervision Civil Service does not allow Cartu Group continue work at King Erekle’s Square, in the “Rostom King’s Palace.”

“The officials of Supervision Service came to the Rostom King’s Palace at night of October 26th and requested the immediate stop of works and forced the employees to leave the territory. The reason was noted to be the incorrectly constructed works. They imposed fine of 4000 GEL and eradication of the shortcomings in 20 calendar days. The employees are not allowed to enter the building up until now. Cartu Group finished the external works of the Palace in the August of 2011 and addressed the City Hall on September 1st to check the object so the building would start operating according to the law. According to the law, the employees of the Supervision Service should have inspected the Rostom King’s Palace till October 13th. However, approximately 10 officials showed up at the King Erekle’s square on October 26th and requested the workers to stop the construction,” – the Press Secretary of Bidzina Ivanishvili states.

According to the press secretary, Cartu Group started to have problems in the 3000 m² area in the Erekle’s square as well: “Cartu Group purchased this area from the state in 2010 for the term of 59 years and was planning to build underground garage there. There was a preliminary permission to build the garage from the capital City Hall. The construction ended by May 26th of 2010 and just the lining works were left. The city hall deprived Cartu Group of the land and the underground garage where there were 100 cars without giving any warning.”

The press secretary touched the situation of Cartu Bank as well: “Though the bank was deprived of big amount of money, it still has one of the highest liquidation levels in the system of Georgian banks.”

“Though the law-enforcement bodies absolutely groundlessly seized big amount of money in the territory of Georgian Bank on October 18th in the forms dangerous for society, we do not suffer the financial problems. Moreover, it has one of the highest liquidation levels in the system of Georgian banks currently. The problem of the bank is that the current attitude of Georgian government and national bank is led by the political factors and the vector of political revengefulness against our founder Bidzina Ivanishvili is highly directed to the bank. The attack against the cash collector car of the bank due to the motive of suppressing money laundering confirms the corresponding. It should be noted that the issue of the responsibility of the Georgian Bank from where we transported supposedly “black” money was never questioned. The statements made by the Georgian Bank who is loyal to the government can be explained only by political motivation. However, it is clear that the operation conducted by the leading world banks cannot be qualified as the attempt of money laundering. The immediate inspection started in the Cartu Bank which is absolutely groundless is factually underway in the regime of temporary administration. It still has not issued inference regarding the resonant operation of money laundering. Alongside, there is a serious pressure exercised against the clients of the bank to force them to transfer accounts and financial assets to other commercial banks who explicitly changed their attitude towards Cartu Bank,” – reads the statement.

The leadership of Cartu Bank categorically requests to stop the politically motivated pressure against the bank and its clients: “Give us back the money seized groundlessly and give us opportunity to operate peacefully and stably which is the utmost obligation of the state and National Bank of Georgia.”