Usupashvili Wants to Put Bill Cutting Tbilisi Mayor's Powers on Hold

Civil Georgia

Parliamentary Chairman Davit Usupashvili has called on his fellow GD lawmakers, behind a bill cutting Tbilisi mayor’s powers, to either withdraw this bill or to put it in line with planned new legislative amendments envisaging major overhaul of local self-governance system.

Two GD lawmakers, Irakli Tripolski and Gia Zhorzholiani, initiated the bill envisaging cutting Tbilisi Mayor’s powers at the expense of increasing Tbilisi City Council’s (Sakrebulo) authorities. In parallel the government has approved package of wide-ranging legislative amendments on reforming local self-governance; the package of bills is expected to be initiated in the Parliament next week.

“Let the sponsors of this bill [on cutting Tbilisi mayor’s powers] consider withdrawing their bill or synchronizing it with [government’s draft] in order not deviate from main course and line, which we plan to implement in respect of the local self-governance,” Usupashvili said at a session of the parliamentary bureau on November 1.

He also said that the bill proposed by two GD lawmakers contains “obvious inaccuracies.”