Police Offices Constructed with District Budget Funds

Maka Malakmadze, Adjara

Khelvachauri district administration constructs police offices with the funds of local budget. Acting district governor Guram Saparidze does not detect any law-violation in this fact. However, local population prefers to spend those funds on the resolution of other problems.

“Not every family has water in the village. The roads are also damaged. We still dream about gas-supply. They should resolve these problems instead constructing police buildings here!” a resident of Ortabatumi village said.

On August 13, Khelvachauri district administration announced tender on the construction of a police office in Ortabatumi village on the official website of the State Procurement Agency http://www.tenders.procurement.gov.ge/. The sum allocated for the purpose was 230 000 lari. The tender failed but soon they will announce it again.

On August 23, 2011 Khelvachauri district administration allocated 222 653 lari for the construction of the police building in Khelvachauri. Five building companies took part in it and finally company SpecHydroProject implemented the work for 168 900 lari.

Acting district governor Guram Saparidze said the budget funds are reasonably spent. “The budget does not prohibit us to construct police office. We have divided the budget funds for other needs too. Two projects are being implemented to resolve the water-supply problem in Ortabatumi and more than 200 000 lari is spent on it. The road will soon be repaired as well. Enough sum was allocated for the gasification of the village and for concrete coverage too.”

Saparidze confirmed with humanrights.ge that everything is not perfectly done in Khelvachauri but they do not breach the law by constructing police office.

Chairman of the Adjara Union of Independent Experts Aslan Lortkipanidze believes construction of police office with the local budget funds is unreasonable expenditure of funds. “Last year, amendments were introduced to the Organic Law of Georgia on Local Self-Government. I think it was unfair amendment which authorized self-governmental entities to allocate funds from the local budget for the state institutions which function on the territory of the self-governmental entity. Although this particular decision of the Khelvachauri district administration does not breach the law, the funds allocated for the construction of the MIA office might be evaluated as unreasonable expenditure of funds.”

It is noteworthy that Georgian MIA itself allocated only 86 000 lari for the construction of per police building in the territory of Adjara Autonomous Republic that is much less than 230 000 lari.