Ex-heads of TBC Bank ready to go back to parliament
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Thursday, February 28
Former heads of the leading Georgian Bank TBC Mamuka Khazaradze and Badri Japaridze, who claim that they were forced to leave the bank they founded 27 years ago, say that they are ready to arrive in the Georgian parliament again to speak publicly about the “deliberate negative campaign around the bank”, as on Tuesday the meeting in the Parliament’s Economic Committee was suspended pre-term.
“We are ready to attend a relevant parliamentary committee again to express our position from the public tribune”, Khazaradze said.
He stated that now he is waiting for the parliament's proposal.
Khazaradze expressed hope that the truth will be revealed and the situation will not result in misunderstanding.
The European Georgia opposition party has stated that they will invite Khazaradze in parliament to speak about the bank’s case.
A meeting in the Parliament’s Economic Committee on Tuesday, which should have answered questions regarding the high-profile TBC Bank case with the involvement of the regulatory National Bank of Georgia (NBG) and former top TBC bankers Mamuka Khazaradze and Badri Japaridze was deranged as NBG head claimed that the public discussion “could harm” TBC bank.
The meeting was scheduled after the NBG decision on 15 February to demand the withdrawal of Khazaradze and Japaridze from TBC due to the money laundering investigation. Khazaradze and Japaridze left TBC bank on 21 February “to avoid the harm on TBC, the country’s economic environment and financial stability.”
Head of Parliament’s Economic Committee Roman Kakulia, who made the decision to suspend the meeting, stated that Gvenetadze was ready to provide details regarding the case, but the information “could harm” TBC.
“Gvenetadze told the committee members that we must have taken the responsibility for the possible consequences if he answered all the questions. We decided not to take such responsibility,” Kakulia said.
Khazaradze said that “all the damage that could be inflicted to TBC and the country’s image, has already been inflicted due to the absurd investigation.” He strongly criticized Gvenetadze for his statement.
The Georgian Chief Prosecutor’s Office stated earlier in January 2018 that its Financial Monitoring Service launched a study of financial assets of TBC Bank, its client companies, bank administrators and particular shareholders in May 2018, which revealed that there were “signs of money laundering”.
“We launched the investigation into money laundering on 2 August 2018. The case concerns developments in 2008 when LTD Samgori M and LTD Samgori Trade received a 17 million USD loan in an accelerated manner from TBC Bank without providing any real estate,” the Prosecutor’s Office said.
The office reported that when the money was placed on the accounts of the companies, head of TBC Mamuka Khazaradze and another representative of the bank Badri Japaridze took the same amount of loan as physical entities from TBC.
The Prosecutor’s Office says that at the end of 2008, TBC, without providing any genuine reasons, wrote off the debt of the companies and in 2012 completely freed the companies from any financial obligations before the bank.
NBG stated that the reason for its demand on the resignation of Khazaradze and Japaridze was the violations found in the Bank transaction made in 2007-2008.
NBG says that they found the violation after the law enforcement agencies addressed the National Bank of Georgia.
The opposition claims that the founder of the ruling party Bidzina Ivanishvili has his interests to the Anaklia project and the campaign to “discredit Khazaradze” is part of his personal concern.
Khazaradze also mentioned the Anaklia project is the reason for black PR stunt personally against him, which ''damaged TBC's as well as the country’s image.''
