Exaggerated Personnel and Increased Salary Foundation at Kutaisi City Hall

Shorena Kakabadze, Kutaisi

Local nongovernmental organizations have been protesting unreasonable expenditure of budget and alarmingly increased personnel at Kutaisi City Hall for a long time already.

Head of administration at the Kutaisi City Hall Tengiz Topuridze also spoke about it.

“What happens here is beyond all norms. Personnel number is artificially increased; new services are established. 544 people worked at the City Hall in 2006 and now their number has reached 668. The salary foundation was also increased and it amounted to 7, 190 million lari for 2013,” said the head of the administration.

Kutaisi mayor also told journalists that everything is not in order at the Kutaisi City Hall. “Everybody knows what is happening in the Kutaisi local government and there is nothing to hide here. In order to improve the situation, we should work harder,” said Mayor Besik Bragadze.

Nongovernmental organizations started speaking about unpleasant situation in local self-governments. Coalition for Transparent Self-Government, which unifies Kutaisi based seven NGOs, monitors activities of local self-government and aims to maximally engage civil society in ongoing process.

Head of the Center for the Protection of Civil Interests Manana Managadze said main problem of the local self-government in Kutaisi is that they do not consider the interests of local population.

“City Hall cannot be an employment office. Today, it implements only this function. Personnel number is exaggerated; salary foundation is increased. It should not continue like that. Local government, regardless their desire, shall be accountable to the population. We will compel them to report to local population, ordinary citizens of Kutaisi. They forget that they came in power through elections and people play key role in their functioning instead a city mayor or any other official,” said Manana Managadze.

Besides the City Hall, the Coalition intends to study the situation in territorial entities of the local self-government.

“We are going to prepare a petition to the chairman of the municipal board and request him to set up a commission based on the board resolution. The Commission shall study activities of the people working in the City Hall and territorial entities. The Commission will estimate how lawfully the employees were selected. Consequently, if they conclude that certain people were illegally employed at the local self-governmental bodies, they should immediately quit jobs,” said Zurab Khurtsidze, chairman of the Coalition’s member organization Sachino.

On their side, representatives of the local self-government appreciated stirring up of the nongovernmental organizations and are ready to cooperate with the Coalition.