Transparency International Georgia has evaluated the performance of the representative body of the Municipality of the City of Poti which was elected in 2017 – the City Council (hereinafter the City Council of Poti).
The report is based on information requested and received from the City Council and that posted on the City Council’s official website, as well as on observations of our organization.
The study covers the period from November 2017 up to 2019.
Main Findings
During the reporting period, the Municipal Council of Zugdidi exercised weak supervision on the Zugdidi City Hall and legal entities established by it, and the control over the officials and individual agencies accountable to the Municipal Council was formal in most cases.
During the reporting period, the Municipal Council of Zugdidi held 65 sessions, more than half (40) of which were extraordinary sessions.
During the same period, the Municipal Council of Zugdidi adopted 189 resolutions, out of which 146 were authored/initiated by the Zugdidi City Hall and 43 – by the Municipal Council.
Only 7 of the 50 members of the Municipal Council are women [1], which is 14% of the total membership.
As of 2019, 4 of the 21 officials of the Municipal Council of Zugdidi had filled out their asset declarations with shortcomings.
During the same period, only 2 of the 6 factions of the Municipal Council – the Georgian Dream – Democratic Georgia and the Conservatives – submitted initiatives, while the factions of the United National Movement, the Industrialists, the Greens, and European Georgia didn’t submit a single initiative to the Municipal Council.
Considering the minimum activity carried out by the factions, the expenditures incurred by the Zugdidi Municipality on their functioning, which amount to GEL 582,032 in total, are disproportionately large.
The Municipal Council of Zugdidi includes the Gender Equality Council, whose action plan was approved by the Municipal Council on April 2019; accordingly, a part of the planned activities are scheduled for the time following the reporting period of this study.
All members of the Municipal Council have been absent from the Council’s sessions during the reporting period. There were 965 absences from the Council’s sessions in total, including 918 absences without a valid reason. Members of the Council failed to take part in commission sessions 1,012 times, including 993 absences without a valid reason.
The Chairperson of the European Georgia faction, Gela Toloraia, missed the most sessions of the Municipal Council (57) without a valid reason, while a member of the same faction, Irakli Ghurtskaia, missed the most commission sessions (72) without a valid reason.
During the reporting period, the salaries given to members of the Municipal Council of Zugdidi amounted to GEL 1,952,557 in total, while the staff of the Municipal Council received a total of GEL 26,700 as monetary rewards.
During the same period, the Municipal Council of Zugdidi spent 89.8 tons of fuel, with a value of GEL 193,777; out of this, 16.5 tons (16,531 liters) of fuel (with a total value of GEL 36,606) was spent by the Chairperson of the Municipal Council, Mamuka Tsotseria.
