Society Criticizes Former Kakheti Region Governor

Last week, changes in personnel resulted into assigning former Governor of Kakheti, Petre Tsiskarishvili, to the position of the Minister of Agriculture. At the briefing, President Saakashvili praised his two-year activities "in one of most problematic regions". Representatives of non-governmental organizations and independent mass media in Kakheti do not agree with the president.

Lia Khuroshvili, lawyer for the 'Human Rights Center's Kakheti office, criticized the former Governor. "Despite the fact that the President highly praised Petre Tsiskarishvili for his deeds in Kakheti, I think his work in the field of human rights is unsatisfactory.  He did not react to particular cases of human rights violations in the region. Moreover, his indifference to these problems encouraged his relatives in the regional administration to insult Ingilos living in Dedoflistskaro on ethnic grounds…," said Lia Khuroshvili.  She added, "I cannot recall whether he considered public opinion regarding any problem. We should also point out that lately he has become too aggressive. He used to order the regional prosecutor to detain journalists."
 
Representatives of independent mass media also complain about former governor, Marina Gogoladze, a correspondent for the newspaper "Imedi", who considers that Tsiskarishvili's leadership resulted in the hindrance of transparency of governmental bodies. "We have not received a single reply to our demand for public information. Meeting with the governor was imopossible for us and particularly for local people. The regional administration gave information only to certain journalists. Thus, rights to equality were violated."

Regional correspondent for the newspaper "24 hours", Zviad Ruadze spoke about possible involvement of the former governor in corruption. "I will single out one principal problem in the Kakheti region. Samtatskaro Bridge was illegally blocked. It had been only link to Saingilo. This problem could have been settled by the governor, but in this particular case he completely ignored public interest. Journalists used to publish about Tsiskarishvili's control on fuel smuggling, but we did so without proof," stated Zviad Ruadze.

Correspondent for Kakheti bureau of the TV Company "Mze", Khatuna Guliashvili, stated that Tsitsakirishvili was not interested in settling problems in Kakheti. According to her, some problems are still ongoing in Kakheti, as well as in many other regions. During his time in office, several fundamental human rights were violated in the region. The journalists who used to criticize governor's activities were especially harassed," said Guliashvili.

Head of 'Young Lawyers Association's Telavi office, Lela Taliuri does not criticize the former governor too severely. "We started a project entitled, "President's Representative in Public Service" and Mr. Petre Tsiskarishvili cooperated with us. He used to send us the information that we asked for. However, further monitoring showed that he had appropriated some funds from the budget. He did not care about public opinion regarding the case" said Lela Taliuri.

According to the information there are two candidates for the position of Kakheti region governor. Both of them are members of the Tbilisi City Hall. These are Zaza Begashvili, who comes from Kakheti, and Davit Ioseliani, who hails from Tbilisi. Whoever the new governor is, the population has one wish -- he should cooperate with non-governmental organizations and mass media.

Gela Mtivlishvili, Kakheti