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Government Purchased Food Parcels for Population

August 31, 2012
Maka Malakmadze, Adjara

Batumi City Hall and Kobuleti Municipal Board assist socially vulnerable families with food. None of those institutions connect the campaign with the upcoming elections. However, they admit that they have not implemented similar project in previous years.

3 kg. rice, 2 kg. buckwheat, 2 liters of oil, 10 kg of wheat flour, 5 kg macaroni, 5 kg, sugar, 1 kg salt, 10 gr. black tea – this is the list of those 8 products which will be distributed among 8 500 families in Batumi and 1 400 families in Kobuleti. Food parcels will be equal in Batumi and Kobuleti and total price of each is 40 lari. Ltd Maja, a winning company of the bid, will distribute the parcels and it will receive 340 000 lari from Batumi City Hall and 55 999 lari from Kobuleti municipal board for the purpose.

The food parcels will be assigned to those families in Batumi and Kobuleti who are registered in the united data base of socially vulnerable families and whose rating points are from 0 to 100 000. 

Acting Batumi City Mayor Jemal Anaidze clarified the distribution of food parcels to families because of raised prices on products in summer time. “Prices on products raise during tourist season. So we want to assist those families somehow. The parcel consists of only small number of necessary products.”

Ananidze does not connect this initiative with the upcoming elections: “People always protested increased prices on products. If it was somehow connected with the elections, we would not have done it.”

Kobuleti municipal board decided to distribute the food aid only among socially vulnerable families living in Kobuleti town. Head of healthcare and social aid service of Kobuleti Municipal Board Dali Giritiladze clarified that families have more problems than those in the villages. “People have gardens in the villages and they grow at least vegetables. But socially vulnerable families live in more poverty in the town. They do not have visitors during tourist season either. So, we decided to help those people. If we had covered the entire district, we would have needed more funds.”

Neither Dali Giritiladze connects the distribution of food packets with the elections. “It has nothing to do with the elections and nobody will be bribed by 40-lari food. In general, I am not much involved in the election process and I do not know what is going on. I think we have not breached anybody’s rights. We want to assist our population.”

The citizens are happy with the initiative but they disliked the components of the aid parcel. “Although it is meager aid, we are pleased. They would rather have replaced buckwheat and tea with some more oil or wheat flour or sugar,” Meri Mumladze, Batumi resident said.

Acting Batumi City Mayor and head of Healthcare and Social Aid Service of the Kobuleti Municipal Board confirmed that people had not received similar aid in previous years. “Last year we had small budget so we could not afford people then,” Dali Giritiladze said.

However, there is one strange circumstance: both acting Batumi mayor and head of social service of Kobuleti municipal board clarify the distribution of foods by tourist season though it does not start at the end of August in Adjara. Government launched accepting of applications on the bid for this service in the middle of August (Batumi City Hall –August 19, Kobuleti Municipal Board – August 17). Consequently, they started distribution of the food parcels on August 25.

Human Rights Center thinks that pre-election period was launched after the President of Georgia officially declared the Election Day of the parliamentary elections of 2012. So, in this particular case, it might be bribery of voters punished under Article 1641 of the Criminal Code of Georgia and on that basis Human Rights Center calls upon the financial monitoring service of the State Audit Office to study this particular case in details and if violation of the law is proved, they should implement relevant measures against National Movement.

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