Military Settlement Dwellers Accuse «Sakhlmmartveloba», a Property Management Organization of Malfeasance BUT Don’t Pay Utility Fees

It is the responsibility of the Ministry of Defense of Georgia to take care of the problems of military settlements in the town of Akhaltsikhe. Consequently local government refuses to solve the problems associated with such settlements.

Gulo Kokhodze, Akhaltsikhe

There are three military settlements in Akhaltsikhe town: They are called “Adinattsetebi” (the Elevens), “Patietashkebi” and “Pagranatriadebi”. It was the responsibility of the property management offices to care fro these settlements during the 1992-2000 years.

In 2003, however, the Ministry of Defense announced a tender for maintenance and the contract was to cover the three military settlements. Ltd. «Sakhlmmartveloba» (translated as house management in English) was successful in winning the tender for the property management.

However, in April 2008 the Ministry of Defense annulled the contract with the Ltd. «Sakhlmmartveloba». After this, «Sakhlmmartveloba» signed contracts with the inhabitants of the settlements on an individual basis. The Ltd. took responsibility to clean the settlement from waste and repair the plumbing pipe and do other utility work in exchange for a 1, 10 GEL per month from each person that agreed to be under the service contract.

“We are responsible for looking after drinking water and sewage systems, cleaning up settlement territory from waste and to provide other public services,” states Arsen Gorelishvili, director of Ltd. «Sakhlmmartveloba».

The locals accuse the Ltd. of negligence in their and complain that no one wants to take care of their problems now.

The inhabitants of so called “Adinatsetebi” military settlement on Zarzmeli Street, Akhaltsikhe town have been facing the problems connected with the old and damaged sewage pipes, the poor quality of drinking water and the system system, and that there is a  dump near the settlement and roofs on their house have been there for a long time.

“The trash truck never shows up to our settlement and inhabitants are trashing the streets and nearby territory with their rubbish. This creates many small heaps of trash in the streets,” states Eter Charukhchyan, the inhabitant of Zarzmeli Street.

Ltd «Sakhlmmartveloba» representatives say that the people do not pay for the service and therefore they do not do their work.

“Communal tax per person is 1, 10 GEL per month. The work of our Ltd. depends on the level of payment. If the people do not pay the tax we are not receive salary and are unable to perform the work,” states the director of Ltd. “«Sakhlmmartveloba»”

There are 11 two-storied, 6 4-storey buildings and several cottages on Zarzmeli Street alone. However, only the inhabitants of two-storied houses have to deal with sewage, waste and water-related problems. It seems that locals confirm that they have not been paid their communal taxes for a long time now.

“We had been paying taxes. However, our problems still remained unsolved. No one paid any attention to us. So we stopped paying money to the Ltd. Now every time we apply to the Akhaltsikhe local government we receive the same answer. They say they can not address our problems because our settlement is owned by the Ministry of Defense and therefore goes beyond the scopes of their responsibility,” states Jenia Parmaniyan, the inhabitant of the settlement.

The Ltd. «Sakhlmmartveloba» representatives say that the settlement faces service problems because the locals are now paying fees to them. “Besides, canalization pipeline system must be completely changed. The money allocate from the population in terms of 1, 10 GEL is not enough and also we are unable to find other funding sources.”

The sewage system creates problems and not only for the inhabitants of Zarzmeli Street but also for the inhabitants of Rustaveli and Tskhra Aprili Streets. The dirty water from broken pipes seeks down to those two streets.

“The dirty water from “Adinatsatebi” has been coming into our yard for three years now. In summer this dirty water smells terrible and in winter it freezes and that creates problems in moving about n the yard,” says Marina Tabatadze, the inhabitant of Rustaveli Street #97.

The Zarzmeli Street waste goes directly to Rustaveli Street when the wind blows. The inhabitants of Rustaveli Street applied to the Akhaltsikhe Municipality Board to solve these problems.

“Even though the Zarzmeli Street does not fall under our responsibility but we still cleaned the sewage line,” states Bidzina Maisuradze, deputy head of Akhaltsikhe Municipality.

He also said that the Akhaltsikhe Municipality Board officially requested the Ministry of Defense to transfer the management rights on three military settlements to Akhaltsikhe municipality: “The military settlement inhabitants basically apply to us when they have many utility related problems. Hence, we addressed the Ministry to delegate their rights to us. However, we have not received any answer from the Ministry in follow-up to our letter as of today.”