Gori City Hall Reduced Funding for the Flat-Owners Fellowship

Lado Bitchashvili, Shida Kartli

The co-funding of the flat-owners fellowship was considered to be one of the most successful projects of the Gori City Hall. The local self-government commenced the program in 2015 and the City Hall’s contribution in it was 80%; the population covered the rest 20% of the projects. In 2016, the City Hall drafted the budget so that the local authority co-funded the fellowship with 90%. 

In 2017, the Gori City Hall made amendments in the program and divided it in two parts: urgent necessity and so-called comfort zone. To eliminate the urgent problems, the local self-government will have the same contribution in the funding of the fellowship but the city hall reduced the funding of the projects at 10% which contained the elements of the comfort.

“Those projects of the flat-owners fellowship were amended, which contained elements of comfort. They are: installment of the doors in the residential buildings and painting of the façade. In other cases, the co-funding portion was not changed,” the advisor to the Gori City Mayor Shalva Tlashadze said.

The City Hall addressed the city council to make respective amendments in the program. The majority of the council members supported the amended project. The council member from the Free Democrats Tamar Tedliashvili said 20% participation of the population in the co-funding program will be additional burden for the people who already have social problems. They will not be able to implement the projects in the frame of the program. 

“I did not support the initiative because I do not think it is correct that the city hall reduces the co-funding. The population cannot afford to cover the 10% of the project costs and if we double their portion, it will make the projects even more impossible to be implemented,” Tedliashvili said.

Gori City Hall envisaged 300 000 GEL for the co-funding of the flat-owners fellowship program in 2017 budget.