Former Head of Gori Culture Center Appealed to Public Defender

Lado Bitchashvili, Shida Kartli

Former director of the Youth and Pupils Cultural-Education Center of the Gori City Hall Aleksandre Valiauri appealed to the Public Defender with regard to human rights violation. According to Valiauri, Shida Kartli Regional Governor Zurab Rusishvili oppressed the city mayor, who then signed the dismissal order on Valiauri.

“I can provide evidence to prove that the regional government abused his power and interfered in the activities of the city hall. The Culture Center is the main noncommercial entity which has its property and incomes. The regional governor was eager to get hold of the property. The audit report, which became basis of my dismissal, relied on the absurd circumstance. I appeal to the Public Defender, and intend to appeal to the court to prove that I was illegally fired,” Aleksandre Valiauri said.

The regional governor did not comment on Valiauri’s accusations. In response to his statements, the press-center of the Gori City Hall released a statement which states that the city hall had forwarded the audit report to the prosecutor’s office.

Gori city mayor Zurab Jirkvelishvili clarifies dismissal of Valiauri with unreasonable expenditure of funds and abuse of power by the former director of the culture center. Jirkvelishvili mentioned the audit report to justify his statement. The audit has two arguments against Valiauri: he was renting out one part of the culture center without permission from the city hall and second – the audit wanted to estimate legal links between the center and group Shavlego, which travelled to Portugal and Spain to give concerts there in August 2015. The audit service had questions about funding this group from the budget of the culture center.

Giorgi Ortanezashvili is head of the audit service at the Gori City Hall. He said the former head of the culture center acted individually without informing the city hall about rent agreements. He also added that if anything is incorrectly written in the audit report, the accusation will be annulled.

“The head of the culture center had to report to higher body about renting out spaces in the Culture Center. He had to get permission for that. If he has documents to prove that he had notified the City Hall about the rent, but the City Hall did not respond to his letters, let him provide those documents and then we will annul our report,” head of the Audit Service at the Gori City Hall Giorgi Ortanezashvili said.

In reply to the head of the Audit Service Valiauri published document dated by December 8, 2014. With the document, director of the Culture Center requested the Gori City Mayor to assign the property to them under the usufruct agreement for rent. The Mayor did not respond to this letter. As for the second accusation, Valiauri claims “case of concert abroad” is also absurd and the city mayor had information about the people who travelled abroad for this concert because he had written to the embassies for visas of musicians.

Aleksandre Valiauri occupied position of the director at the Culture Center for three years. He is member of the Republic Party of the Coalition Georgian Dream. Prosecutor’s office has not yet summoned him. Valiauri requests creation of a commission in the Gori city council to study the circumstances mentioned in the audit report.