100 buses for self-governments

Lado Bitchashvili, Shida Kartli

The Ministry of Regional Development and Infrastructure purchased 100 buses for the central cities of the regions. Gori municipality will receive 30 out of 100 buses. The Gori municipal assembly already allocated territory to arrange a bus park. The assembly chairman Davit Razmadze said Gori will now have municipal transport.

“We allocated 8 000 sq. meter land in Shindisi Avenue in Gori to arrange auto-park. Total price for the construction of park is 1 200 000 GEL. The assembly members supported the initiative and now the project on the construction of bus-station and additional buildings will be developed,” Davit Razmadze said.

Although the assembly supported the initiative, the members of the opposition parties see some risks in it. Vasilisa Jabakhidze, the assembly member from the United National Movement, said that after the scheduled expenditure of budget funds, it is not excluded that the local self-government will decide to sell the auto-park. Finally the municipal transport will become the property of the people associated with the government like it happened few years ago.

“We ask will the bus-park be sold out or leased out like it happened in the past, when 6 municipal buses were leased out and the local budget receives minimal income from it. At the same time, many citizens asked the Gori municipality city hall and assembly to ensure that public transport worked both in the city and in the villages after 18:00 pm too. However, the local authority answered that the transport belongs to private person and they could not interfere. Now I wonder, when we spend more than million GEL from the local budget on the municipal transport, will it again stop working at 18:00 pm? Or will they respect the best interests of the population,” Vasilisa Jabakhidze said.

Representatives of the local government think it is now early to speak about the working schedule of the municipal transport. However, they stated that if the population requests, it will be extended. According to the Tbilisi municipality mayor they will receive 30 buses: among them 12 buses will be of 10-meters long and 18 buses - 8-meters long. Mayor Konstantine Tavzarashvili said the 10-meters-long buses will run inside the city and the 8-meters-long buses will serve the villages.