Within the framework of the Inter-Agency Commission on Electoral Issues functioning at the National Security Council, on June 18 the United National Movement has informed the observer missions about ongoing serious staff changes and reorganization within Kutaisi City Hall. Transparency International Georgia (TI Georgia) tried to obtain more information from the Kutaisi Sakrebulo on these processes, but the Sakrebulo did not cooperate with us.

June 18 and the days that followed, saw the dismissal of 11 heads of the City Hall departments of the self-governing city Kutaisi. According to those dismissed, the 18 June, 2013 Order #712 of the Chairman of Kutaisi Sakrebulo, which served as the basis for their dismissal, must approve the personnel number of City Hall's reorganized services. This order, however, was not issued at the time of dismissals.

In order to verify this information, TI Georgia addressed Kutaisi Sakrebulo based on Articles 10, 37, 38 and 40 of the General Administrative Code of Georgia (as a person responsible for issuing public information, as well as Sakrebulo Chairman) and requested a copy of the Order or at least a possibility to review it immediately. The Kutaisi Sakrebulo Chairman has refused both to provide a copy of this public document to our representatives and to allow them to familiarize themselves with the Order immediately. There is substantial doubt whether such an order did indeed exist, and we believe that our request was rejected for this very reason.

The media alleges that apart from the 11 Heads of Departments, 75 additional employees were dismissed from various services of Kutaisi City Hall. Vacancies for these positions will be announced from July 1; until then the acting personnel will occupy the vacant positions.

Considering that City Hall's employees have not been certified or examined (to identify the optimum number of employees) in the past 5 years, the criteria for evaluating the professionalism of employees and making the decisions concerning dismissal are vague.

We urge Kutaisi Sakrebulo to publicize the 18 June 2013 Order #712 and make it available to interested parties without further delay; we further advocate that they carry out dismissal and recruitment policies within a legal framework and with far more transparency.