IDP Settlement In Gori Is Not Supplied with Electricity

Lado Bichashvili, Shida Kartli

Internally displaced people living in Gori kindergarten No. 1 have not been supplied with electricity for over two months; residents of the kindergarten No. 7 and a public school face same problems.

As it was found out, Electricity Distribution Company Energo Pro Georgia cut off the electricity supply for the facilities because of unpaid bills. The Ministry of IDPs from Occupied Territories, Refugees and Accommodation used to cover the electricity bills of IDPs in the past but this year the Ministry refused to cover communal bills. 

Khatuna Laliashvili: “We have not been supplied with electricity and drinking water for more than two months. We buy candles and lit rooms with it; the government used to cover our electricity bills but as soon as they stopped covering it, the electricity supply was suspended.”

Leila Klavishvili: “We are indigent people and now we have to live without electricity and water; we have no natural gas either; we have children and somebody should pay attention to us.”

IDPs said they cannot pay communal bills with their meager monthly allowances.

Mariam Laliashvili: “We have not had electricity and water supply for the fifth month already. Representatives of the Electricity Distribution Company arrived last Friday and said the debt reached 7 thousand lari. Unless we pay it, they will not resume the supply. If we had 7 thousand lari, we would not have lived here. We live on social allowance.”

Total debt of nine IDP settlements amounts to 33 000 lari. People without status and socially indigent families live in the kindergartens together with IDPs. This factor became basis for the Ministry to delegate responsibility to resolve the problem to the Gori district administration. Gori district governor Papuna Koberidze does not deny that those people have problems but said that local budget does not have enough resources to cover the debts. 

Papuna Koberidze: “The debt amounts to 33 000 lari; in the previous years the Ministry covered the bills but now they refused because socially indigent families also live there but we do not have enough sums in the local budget.”

The district administration clarified that presumably the government’s reserve fund will cover the debt of the families living in kindergartens; he said the representatives of the central authority promised him to do it.

“State Minister for Reintegration Issues Zakareishvili and Minister of Regional Development and Infrastructure Narmania arrived here about a week ago. They promised IDPs to raise their question at the government session in two weeks. Supposedly, the money will be allocated from the reserve fund.”

Before governmental institutions settle the problem, several dozens of IDP families still live in candle-light.