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“You Are Dead!” – Retired People Victimized by Election Fabrications Cannot Get Their Pensions and “Lives” Back

June 30, 2010
Inga Gvasalia, Samegrelo

People are not surprised with paradoxes in Georgia. During every election dead people raise from the dead but apparently we have already put up with it; however we could not imagine that things happened vice versa too. Several retired people from Poti district could not get their pensions because they were not on the list. When they inquired the reasons the reply was astonishing – “you are dead and you cannot get pension.”

Hearing it, retired woman Madona Nodia almost had nervous breakdown but she applied to the city office of the Social Agency and requested explanations from them. They replied – “many “dead” people like you visit our office lately. You are in better position because you are not very old; can you imagine the reaction of an 80-year-old person on similar information?”

To tell the truth, neither Madona Nodia was happy to hear their reply and went to the Public Registration Agency to “rise from the dead”. There she was explained that the data was provided to them by their agents who collected information door-by-door before elections. Madona Nodia clearly remembers how she dictated the agent the names of her family members and herself too. Apparently, the agents could not deliver the information to the office properly.

It is also noteworthy that initially Nodia could not discover her name on the election list and could not vote (the chairperson of the district election commission apologized to her for the mistake) but how she could imagine to be removed from the list of retired people!

Madona Nodia could not find out how to revive by visiting various agencies and applied to us for help. Head of Poti office of the Public Registration Agency Bakur Tsiramua was surprised when he heard we were interested in the issue; he said he is not authoritative person and cannot say anything officially. However, in private conversation he evaluated the fact as technical fault and denied the information about many similar mistakes.

Representative of the Poti office of the Social Agency Inga Ghvinjilia said: “The Public Registration Agency has provided us with the data. Our agency estimates allowances based on their data.” She added that those citizens, who were registered as dead, will not lose their pensions and as soon as the mistakes are corrected, they will receive their pensions.

We hope, the problem of Nodia and other retired people will be resolved soon and old people will receive their pensions without delay.

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