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A man was killed by outdated electricity system in Marana village

August 26, 2014
 
Lado Bichashvili, Shida Kartli

Residents of Marana village in Gori district held protest demonstration in front of the Shida Kartli regional administration office. The villagers request individual electricity meters in their families and rehabilitation of the electricity system. They said if the problem is not timely resolved, the village will stay without electricity because of outdated wooden pillars of the electricity system that already caused tragedy in the village – their neighbor climbed up the pillar to check the communal electricity meter and he was killed by electricity. 

Nino Razmadze, protester: “The pillars are already punk; a young boy died because of it; people are scared.”

Valeri Chipashvili, protester: “A young man already died because of the outdated pillars; we arrived here to urge the administration to pay attention to the problem before we have a new tragedy in the village.”
Subscribers also complain about wasted electricity and frequent problems in the electricity supply that is caused by outdated wooden pillars and electricity system. Local Vazha Makhviladze said he raised the issue with the Minister of Energy and reminded Minister Kakhi Kaladze of his promise. “Before elections Kaladze personally promised me to send a group of specialists to the village and resolve the problem. I cannot say that Kaladze has deceived me but I think he ordered others to go and resolve the problem but they did not obey the order. Electricity kiosk is located two kilometers away and it causes fall of electricity power from 220 kilowatt to 120-130 kilowatt. Refrigerators, TV-sets and other apparatus went wrong in families.”

Representatives of the local government met protesters; head of administration service at Gori district administration Giorgi Tsverava promised Marana residents to inform Energo-Pro Georgia about their problem.

Giorgi Balakhashvili, specialist of public relation at the South Georgia’s branch office of the Energo Pro Georgia, told humanrights.ge that electricity system needs rehabilitation and outdated pillars must be replaced not only in Marana but in other villages too; Energo-Pro Georgia is repairing the system eventually.

As for the death of the villager, representatives of the Energo-Pro Georgia say it was caused by carelessness.

Giorgi Balakhashvili: “Part of pillars is outdated; the reason of law electricity power is long electricity transition wire, which causes delays. In order to improve the supply, we have planned activities which improve supply in Marana and other villages. In this particular village the process will finish by the end of October. As for the death fact in Marana village, it was caused by carelessness and breached security measures of the person. He did not work for our company and if the pillar had any technical problem, they had to apply to our service office for help. He died of carelessness and the company is not guilty in it. We have not installed those electricity meters either and the population did it based on their own initiative.”

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