“It Is not Competition but Human Rights Violation” – Competition Participants State

Shorena Kakabadze, Kutaisi

The competition, announced by the city self-government body in August, 2013 after the reorganization in the Kutaisi City Hall, has not finished yet. The competition participants said the commission, chaired by Tamaz Margvelashvili, chairman of the Kutaisi City Council, drags out the process that causes their astonishment.

The commission, who according to the preliminarily announced conditions stopped accepting applications on September 4, followed recommendation of the Task Force for Fair Elections and halted personnel changes in the local self-governments temporarily before the Presidential Elections. It was their clarification of the ceased competition process in the City Hall. However, as we found out, nothing has changed since October 27 and competition participants still wait for results.

“It is irresponsible attitude towards our applicants. I wonder why they have not made decision so far. If they could not hold competition, why they started it at all? However, there is one interesting moment – they want to employ their relatives in the self-governmental institutions and do not need competition now. Simply, they need to prolong time when people will lose interest in it,” a competitor, head of Center for the Protection of Civil Interests Manana Managadze, told humanrights.ge. 

One more contestant Pikria Beradze speaks about nepotism in the Kutaisi City hall. She said all deadlines for the competition were expired; and service units are still lead by interim heads.

 “The competition, which was announced by the former Kutaisi City Mayor Dimitry Kopaliani and whose purpose was positive amendments, went into deadlock after his resignation. It was Mr. Dimitry’s merit when competition was announced. Today, they do their best to degrade this positive initiative and fix it to their personal interests. They say I had submitted incomplete documentation for the competition. They requested auto-biography together with CV. I cannot understand why they should need two equal documents. Simply, it is unreasonable argument for them to block me,” Pikria Beradze said. 

Competitors claim the dragged out process hinders the activities of the City Hall that finally negatively reflects on the everyday life of the city and its reputation. “These people artificially created this situation. Thus they breached our rights. If they had announced serious competition, everything would have been better. Kutaisi City Hall acts shamefully,” Pikria Beradze said. 

The commission members say the accusations are absurd and claim that the real reason of prolonged procedure is their wish to properly conduct competitions. “Our purpose is to conduct high-level competition, to select qualified personnel after what City Hall divisions will work properly under leadership of qualified professionals,” said commission chairman Tamaz Margvelashvill.