Zestaponi Market Traders to Block the Road

On December 22, traders of the Zestaponi old market broke into the district administration.  They requested right to return to old working places and claimed they would not work in the new building because of high taxes there.

“Zestaponi is a little district and we cannot trade much. Many people do not go to the market. So we cannot earn enough to pay high taxes in the new market; we request to allow us to continue trading in the old market,” said the traders.

They requested meeting with the Zestaponi district governor to resolve this problem. Later, new district governor Nugzar Kamushadze met traders. “Our goal is to protect rights of both traders and customers. It is fact that old market premise does not meet sanitary norms whilst everything is within norms in the new market. I fully understand those traders, who cannot pay high taxes. We will try to resolve this problem timely so that everybody was satisfied,” said Nugzar Kamushadze.

On December 23, traders requested meeting with the market director but later the manager met them and said the director had gone to Tbilisi. “This market is functioning but we will try to improve conditions here. We have already arranged parking space that was request of the traders,” said manager of the Zestaponi agricultural market Amiran Kakauridze.

Despite that, traders still demanded meeting with the director; they broke into the market administration building and tried to nail up the door of the director’s working room. Police officers took traders out of the building.

The manager promised them the director would meet them as soon as he arrives from Tbilisi and problems would be resolved together with the local self-government. If the problems are not resolved, the traders threat with blocking the main road in Zestaponi.

Mari Tabidze, Zestaponi