Winner projects of the program “Public Budget” were nominated in Gori

Lado Bitchashvili, Shida Kartli

On January 21, the projects, winning the program of the Public Budget, were presented. Gori municipality mayor named the authors of the winning projects and awarded them with symbolic presents. 

“We implemented the program Public Budget in the entire municipality. Population actively participated in it and submitted projects, which were funded this year. 2 800 000 GEL was allocated for that program,” Gori municipality mayor Konstantine Tavzarashvili said.

The Gori self-government commenced the program Public Budget in 2016. At that time, Gori municipality was divided into two self-governing body: city and the district. The Gori City hall implemented the pilot program first in the city and asked citizens what they wanted to be done in their settlements in the frame of the Public Budget. The projects were prepared by the initiative group of the citizens and the City Hall was deciding to finance them or not. The pilot project was successful. After 2017 municipal elections, the Gori City lost the status of self-governing city and the city and municipality villages were unified into one self-governing body. 

In 2018, the Public Budget program was implemented in the entire municipality and up to 3 million GEL was allocated for it from the central budget, which was equally distributed on 28 administrative unit. The Strategic Development Agency of the Gori Municipality City Hall supervised the program, whose director Marta Bibilashvili said that as a result of public engagement the program was successful. She said, the population gave priority to infrastructural projects like arranging squares and children’s playgrounds in the settlements. 

“The project proposals mostly referred to infrastructural initiatives, including the arrangement of recreation zones in the areas which were not used before,” Marta Bibilashvili said.

In 2018, the National Association of Local Governance nominated the Gori municipality as the municipality with the best practice of civic engagement for the successful implementation of the Public Budget program.