Old People Are Hungry in the Canteens That Were Opened with Funfair

They think that if they put a mixture of half-row potatoes and macaroni in half-boiled water, it is soup. If you behave badly, you will not get even that soup. Before elections free canteens were opened in various districts of Georgia by Nationals. The old people have started to speak up about problems in the canteens after the food has become worse.

Nearly sixty old people have dinner at the Gurjaani based free canteens that were opened by the governmental party before elections. According to the official information, until 2007 canteens were financed by the Joint National Movement’s Gurjaani district organization. In 2007 the funds should be allocated from the district budget under the resolution of the Municipality.

According to the canteen administration, the district budget will apportion 0, 88 tetri for each old person to feed once a day. “That amount of money includes the food for old person, communal expenses and the salaries of the employees. Finally, 0, 50 tetri is spent to feed one beneficiary,” said the head of the canteen, Lela Shalvashvili.

Beneficiaries for the canteen are old people. Most of them did not want to comment on the situation. “If we complain, they will kick us out from the canteen saying we are not impoverished people. Although we are not too disabled, the only income for us is a pension of 38 lari. It is not enough to pay the electricity bill and buy firewood to warm the house,” said the old people.

Despite the fear, some of the old people shared their problems with us. However, they begged us “Don’t tell them I have spoken with you.”

“We have dinner once a day. Initially, conditions were really satisfactory; they often served us with meat dishes. However, recently it has become a rare occasion and they serve us with nice food when some high ranking official visits us. Actually, they have not arrived here after elections. Cooks put some row potatoes and macaroni in badly-boiled water and feed us with it. We are fed up with the boiled beans that have neither fat nor salt,” said the old people.

“Initially Shevardnadze and then Saakashvili created such conditions for us that we have to go to free canteens. They turned us into beggars. We have no more way out, shall we die of hunger? The quality of nutrition and conditions has really worsened.  Sometimes there is such unbearable situation that we express our complaints loudly. We expect someone to pay attention to us,’ said Valentina Khrulova.

The old people got particularly furious by the fact that local authority did not visit them at New Year, nor on Mother’s Day or March 8. “Several months have passed and nobody has remembered about us. Before elections they did not need any particular event to visit us. However, this year they did not congratulate us with Mother’s or Women’s days either. We were very sorry. If governor and his deputies could not find time to see us, what others were doing at the Municipality? We did not want them to come here with presents, we are old people and we like when somebody cares about us like children do. We urge them to improve our food a bit,” said Lena Gochitashvili, Maria Utova and others.

Shalvashvili does not agree with the old people’s complaints. “Show me who is complaining. Let’s go together and listen to them. Everybody wants to live in good conditions, however we work as well as we can. The old people complain about us for having increased the number of beneficiaries. The list of the free canteens does need to look through, because some of them really do not deserve our assistance. Actually, those are odd people who complain about bad food,” said Shalvashvili.

We applied to the Gurjaani Municipality regarding the situation. Zurab Kheviashvili, the chairman of the Municipality refused us to comment on the situation. He just pointed out that “I cannot feed those old people with my salary. We cannot give them better food because of poor budget.”

By the way, the salary of the chairman of the municipality is 1 900 GEL except bonuses and other incomes.

Gela Mtivlishvili, Kakheti