First round of competition at Kutaisi self-governmental agency failed

Shorena Kakabadze, Kutaisi

Competition in Kutaisi local self-governmental agencies might fail. Presumably, applicants for 196 vacant positions will have to take new competition. The reason is incompletely submitted application documents to the competition commission.

According to the chairman of the test competition commission at the Kutaisi City Hall David Dvali the total 5006 applications were submitted to the commission. Some applicants had submitted applications for several positions. Finally, 407 participants out of 1693 contestants passed to the second stage. “In addition, we took into consideration interests of those 474 applicants, who hadn’t submitted copies of IDs. Besides that, their applications did not provide information about their computer skills. Civil Service Bureau recommended us to act so and we compromised,” Davit Dvali said. 

 

One of the applicants, who refrained from making his name public, told humanrights.ge, that in fact the commission did not do any compromise: “Initially, they simply decided not to shortlist people beyond their interest for the second round. Then they realized that it would cause discontent and changed their minds. They explained everything with incomplete documentation and planned how to correct it. But now they claim they accepted the recommendation of the Civil Service Bureau. I don’t know what will happen. I definitely know one thing - I will protect my rights, even if I have to appeal to the court. Others will also defend their rights. Finally, it's time to select employees in this country and in this city through competition." 

Due to current situation at the Kutaisi city hall, the commission of appeal was composed which has already started work and will review complaints of applicants within two days. At this moment, only 26 applications were submitted to the appeal commission.

As for the competition, it has three stages, in the frame of which documents will be selected, test-exams will be provided and at the final stage applicants will be interviewed. According to the representatives of the Kutaisi City Hall, as a result of the competition, which does not refer to the heads of the service departments, 340 contracted and 35 non-contracted new employees will start working in the Kutaisi City Hall from January 2015. 

However, the probability of re-submission of documents and repeated competition is very high. Kutaisi Mayor Shota Murgulia made official statement about the issue: “It is a reality and there is nothing tragic in it. We need educated, professional personnel in the City Hall and not random people who will just occupy vacant places. Therefore, if necessary, we’ll re-announce the competition.” 

If his statement has follow up, the date of the second stage of the competition will be changed- instead November 16 it will take place at the end of December. 

The local NGO’s already applied to Kutaisi City Hall for the monitoring of the competition process. They submitted written application to the chairman of the competition commission when competition was announced. However, they have not received reply so far. 

Imereti region coordinator of the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy ISFED Teona Gogishvili told humanrights.ge: “Several organizations applied for monitoring.  We are waiting for the response. Perhaps, we will meet in near future and decide how the process will be conducted. We will also find out which non-governmental organization will obtain right to monitor the process.”