TELASI Employees Interrogated at Gvaramia’s Trial

Salome Achba

Several employees of TELASI Company (Tbilisi Electricity Distribution Company) were questioned at the trial on the case of Nika Gvaramia, Aleksandre Khetaguri and several other people. They spoke about the agreement between L&M Service and TELASI.

Former Minister of Justice and Minister of Education at different times Nika Gvaramia is accused of assisting in accepting bribe, legalization of illegal revenues and use of fake  documents. Former minister of energy Aleksandre Khetaguri is charged of accepting bribe, legalization of illicit revenues and abuse of professional authority. There are four more people accused in the same case.

According to the investigation, TELASI faced some financial problems and if the state audit had inspected the financial activities of the Company, the latter would have had to pay about 10 million lari to the state budget that would have bankrupted the TELASI in fact. That time director of the TELASI Devi Kandelaki asked minister Aleksandre Khetaguri to assist and patronage them regarding financial violations.

“In 2012, Khetaguri was offered to settle financial problems between the Company and the state in exchange of 1 million lari. Nika Gvaramia was also involved in the bribe-settlement. The money was to be transferred to the account of an organization as a reimbursement for the consultation provided for the Company.

Gvaramia convinced the other accused person in the case Giorgi Nemsitsveridze to create consulting organization L&M Service which had to receive 1 million lari on its account. The organization was founded on July 26 and soon the money was transferred to its account. The accused people laundered the money in accordance to this scheme,” the prosecutor said in his introductory speech.

The people, interrogated as witnesses at the process, confirmed that TELASI had really signed agreement with L&M Service and paid 500 000 lari to them though Nemsitsveridze’s company received the money for the provided consulting service.

“L&M Service studied financial and tax risks of the company and received 500 000 lari for the service. I think their implemented work was proportionate to the transferred money,” employee of the financial unit of the TELASI Kakha Kharebava said.

Head of Procurement and Planning Department of TELASI Mariam Kaladze said procurement of consulting service from L&M was not envisaged in the annual budget of the TELASI. Her testimony shows that service of the L&M was purchased by the Company through procedural violations.

“When procurement price exceeds 20 000 lari, the department shall discuss it at the session. However, the issue of L&M service was not raised at the session though its price exceeded 20 000 lari. Director General called me regarding this issue and asked whether the issue was discussed at the session but I told him it had not reached us. The director general said we had made mistake and had to correct it procedurally. So we prepared a fake protocol and asked session participants to sign the document with old dates. In fact, we breached the internal regulations to correct the mistake and not to face problems with InterRao,” said Mariam Kaladze at the session.

She clarified that aforementioned protocol had no legal power but it is for internal use. Besides, the commission, which discusses necessity of procurements, has more formal character. Even if the commission declines any procurement initiative, in accordance to the TELASI regulation, Director General can purchase the service without any problems.

“In fact, the Commission is a consulting body and is set up to make the procurement procedures easier for the director general. The latter cannot consider every procurement initiative alone. Even if the commission declines the proposal, the director general can carry out procurement procedures,” Kaladze said.

The accused people claim the testimonies of the witnesses verify their own position and the prosecutor’s allegations are ungrounded. Next trial on the case is scheduled on April 26.