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Why Village Governors Are Not Appointed and Whose Interests Is Zugdidi Population Sacrificed to?!

September 25, 2007

Thirty villages in Zugdidi District do not have governors yet. The population has been waiting for them for eight months in vain. Villagers get tired in the queues to Zugdidi Archive when they want to get some document they could receive from village governors during previous years. According to the spread information the interest of villagers are sacrificed to the inter-party and governmental debates. Controversy between Aleksandre Kobalia, chairman of the District Municipality and Vakhtang Tskhadaia, Chairman of Administrative Board has not finished yet. Central government prefers to keep silence regarding the situation.

In Zugdidi nobody knows when villages will have governors. However, Roman Gabisonia, member of the Municipality Fraction “Conservatorebi”, speaks about the upcoming results and recalls soviet regime. “In Communist Georgia, when high ranking official died, in respect to his memory, nobody occupied his position during following year and paid the salary to the family of the dead official. On October 5 it will be one year since villages in the district have not had governors. However, they are supposed to appoint governors now. Old tradition still works in our country.”

Short time ago, non-official appointment of village governors ended in failure in Zugdidi district. They spread information that the Municipality demanded to appoint governors in 16 villages. However, Administrative Board showed bit of greediness and desired to appoint governors in 25 villages. Unofficially appointed governors celebrated their new positions by giving parties; they gathered in front of the building of Administrative Board and discussed their future plans together. Unfortunately, representatives of the Department for Constitutional Security within the Internal Ministry arrived there and invited new “governors” to the “party” in the department. Nobody discusses the results of that “party”. However, it must be pointed out that those people were threatened. Those people did not say whether they supported either Municipality Governor or the chairman of the Administrative Board. The only person they liked was Georgian President. According to spread information some of the candidates were reminded of their previous activities and showed the list of land they had distributed illegally. Consequently, it is quite natural that frightened future governors refused to accept all kind of positions and they are supposed to keep silence for ever.

Tskhadia categorically denies his controversy with Kobalia and stated that the delay in appointing the village governors was connected with prolonged selection of suitable candidates. “They are selecting people but have not settled yet whose protégé should be appointed to these positions in order to reinforce the National Movement. I cannot understand why Municipality follows Administrative Board’s orders. Why they accept all proposals of the Administrative Board and why people keep silence regarding the situation?” said Gabisonia.

People, standing in the queue to Zugdidi Archive, state that it has no difference for them whether village governors would be appointed or not, because those people will not resolve their problems and will act only as informatory in the village. The principal problem for them is that for a sheet of paper they have to arrive in town from the village several times and it costs quite a fortune for them. To get a notification on family membership citizen should pay 8, 30 lari. However, if an applicant wants to get the document immediately s/he must pay 12, 5 lari for it. Registration notification on land costs 41, 30 lari but if you want to get it soon you must pay 62 lari instead. Serapion Zarandia arrived in Zugdidi from the village of Jikhashkari. He is concerned regarding the situation and said that he used to pay only two lari for similar document in the village. Zugdidi Archive has problems too. There are only three employees in the archive who cannot give out nearly 40 documents every day. Otar Mebonia, chief specialist, said that documents were delivered from villages in a hurry: “Documents were in terrible disorder. None of them are numerated. Family records, records of board meetings and documents on accountancy were in terrible disorder. Consequently, it takes much time to find each of them and we work without breaks.”

District Municipality Governor is not worried regarding the situation and does not care if village population encounters serious problems. “Is it any problem? It is up to us when appointments will start,” it is his comment on the situation. However, it is strange whom did he consider under “us” and whose orders he is waiting for. It is fact that he has mentioned “soon” very often for the last eight months. They say that Aleksandre Kobalia intends to discuss the reasons for not having appointed people to the positions of village governors with Georgian President only. But it will happen only in case the president asks him about it.

Kobalia does not seem to know the resolution adopted by Municipality in February, which states that 56 000 lari was allocated for the salaries of village governors. That sum is in Municipality budget and nobody could dare to spend it so far. Allocated money can be reasonably spent only after corresponding amendments are introduced to the budget. It is not excluded that the government will spend that money on up-coming elections and thus will blatantly violate the law.


Nana Fazhava, Zugdidi  

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