Madona Batiashvili, Kakheti News Center
Vaziani-Gombori-Telavi motorway, whose rehabilitation officially cost 43 million GEL, was opened on October 2, 2010 by the president of Georgia. The president was pleased with the implemented activities. Almost two months have passed since the opening of the rehabilitated road but it is already damaged and traveling along it is dangerous.
“I first traveled on the Vaziani-Gombori-Telavi motorway three months ago. I was going to a village in Sagarejo district to prepare a photo-reportage in the framework of the project funded by the Foundation “Open Society –Georgia”. The road was so damaged that it took us 5 hours to get to the village. The road was collapsed in many places; tree-branches were stuck in the holes instead of warning signs. The rehabilitation activities were going on in parallel to it. I traveled back home by the same road and only 3 cars met us. Traveling was more difficult at night. The car fell into a hole and was damaged. We returned to the office at 1:00 am. The next day, when the Kakheti News Center spread information about the rehabilitation of the road, the representatives of the Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure repeatedly told us “you do not see the activities of the government” and reassured us that, “the rehabilitation of the 55kilometer- long road will be finished by the end of September. Further, the president has promised the Kakheti region population that everything will be done at high quality.”
Having seen the road during our trip, I had the impression that the rehabilitation activities could not have been finished in such a short time but they finished it.
On October 2, the President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili inspected the conditions on the rehabilitated 55-kilometer-long part of the Gombori road. The national TV-companies transmitted the statements of the president all day long. “The president arrived in Telavi by this road. He was pleased with the implemented activities because it will take only one hour now to get to Telavi from Tbilisi. Two new bridges were built on the road; four bridges were rehabilitated. The president said the road was closed for many years and the point is that the old narrow and dangerous road has significantly widened,” said the anchors of the news programs.
“When Gia Arsenishvili was a single mandate candidate for the parliamentary elections here, he promised the Kakheti regional population to rehabilitate the road. Before that, Gia was the regional governor. His main pre-election promise was to pave the road here. I want everybody to remember that we always keep our promises. Mr. Gia always reminded me about the road. To tell the truth, I was already ashamed to meet him before the road finished. It happens when the government, MP, the local authorities and various institutions cooperate; promises are kept. I want to say thank you to Mr. Gia and to everybody who worked on this project,” said Mikheil Saakashvili.
On November 12, the editor of the Kakheti News Center again asked me to visit the villages in Gombori Valley. The Center implements a project with the support of the Foundation “Open Society – Georgia”. In the framework of this project we prepare photo-reportages in the villages of the region. This time, we had to visit the village of Ujarma. I was late getting there again. The recently-rehabilitated road was already damaged. The asphalt has cracked and had fallen apart in many places; the edges have collapsed; the landslide has damaged it in several places. I met workers who were repairing the damaged road. They did not tell us the name of the company which hired them. They just told me that the road is in a landslide area and these damages the road. They added that the thickness of the asphalt is 7-12 centimeters but when we measured it, the thickness was only 3-4 centimeters.
The road department of the Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure of Georgia commented on the damage of the recently rehabilitated Vaziani-Gombori-Telavi road. “Landslides periodically occur in several areas of the road and this deforms the road. In order to eradicate the problem, we systematically work on the place in the framework of the exploitation activities of the road department,” said the deputy chairman of the department Nugzar Gasviani.
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