Investor Cannot Pay Salaries to Its Employees

Gela Mtivlishvili, Kakheti

The Lithuanian Company “Akhema Group”, which purchased the JSC “Kakheti Energy Distribution Company” in January of 2009, cannot pay the salaries of nearly 600 employees of the company.

Representatives of the Gurjaani, Kvareli, Lagodekhi and Sighnaghi district service centers of the Kakheti Energy-Distribution Company state they have encountered problems with salaries since the Kakheti Company was purchased by the “Akhema Group.”

The employees of the Energy-Distribution Company of the Kakheti Region said: “Before the purchase the Company was in bankruptcy but as a rule the employees received their salaries at the end of each month. After the investor bought the company the labor agreements with the employees were signed only for one month and if we satisfied all demands of the investor we signed another one-month-contract at the end of the month. We have not received salaries for April and we do not know when they will be paid. We received our February and March salaries after one-month delays; however, according to the agreement the salaries shall be distributed before the 10th of each month.”

The  Director General of the JSC Raimundas Ambrozaitis, who represents the “Akhema Group”, states that the company has encountered some problems because of internal political problems and political crises in the country. “We distribute the salaries after the subscribers pay their bills. In this field, the situation is not very challenging,” said the director general. He cannot specify the exact day when nearly 600 employees will receive their salaries.

The Investor is not following the Law Regarding Community Meters

Despite the complicated situation, Ambrozaitisi claims that Energy-Company on July 1, 2009 will start the first stage of the installation of individual meters for subscribers in the region. He said that before December 31, 2009 the company plans to have installed meters for 10 000 subscribers and that 2, 200 million GEL will be used for the installations..

“The process will start on July 1, 2009 and will finish on December 31, 2010. At the first stage, individual meters will be installed for 10 000 subscribers and the company has set aside 2, 200 million GEL for the activities. The individual meters will be installed in every village of the region and the company will cover all expenses,” said Zhana Didebashvili, spokesperson for the Kakheti Energy-Distribution Company. “The Company has122, 000 subscribers in the region and only 31, 000 of them have individual meters. The rest use communal meters and they have to pay a bill according to communal meters. Very often, the communal bill is unfair in that when the total bill is divided by the number of users, some users pay for more than the electricity they used and some pay for less that the electricity they used. Sometimes a family has to pay an extra 20 GEL. If some subscriber to the communal meters cannot pay the bill, the Company cuts off the electricity of not only that family but of every family that uses the communal meter. According to the resolution of the National Energy Regulatory Commission of Georgia if subscribers do not have individual meters, they must pay the bills according to communal meters. However, the subscribers shall be cut off individually and not communally.