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Compiled by Messenger Staff
Monday, April 8
Green Alternative addresses Tbilisi Mayor and City Council with recommendations

Liberali reports that the NGO Green Alternative has addressed Mayor of Tbilisi Gigi Ugulava and Tbilisi’s City Council with several recommendations raising the responsibility of the heads of ecology, greenery and purchase civil services. According to the statement of the NGO, the condition of the capital’s ecology and greenery are not satisfactory, while violations were observed in the process of purchase.

The members of the organization wonder who is making decisions and what the norms and criteria are in the planting and cutting of trees in Tbilisi. “Such a deficit of transparency creates the best environment for corruption,” the statement reads. According to Green Alternative, the recent tenders in the field raise serious questions.

Based on the existing circumstances, the organization and other signatories of the address, recommend Ugulava and the Sakrebulo to start considering their concerns and suggested carrying out changes in the above mentioned services, launch a wide-scale discussion over the ecological problems of the capital and establish legislative norms and concepts over the issue.



Giorgi Kalandadze says Alasania asked him to give testimony against Akhalaia

According to Netgazeti, Former Chief of Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces, Giorgi Kalandadze, has accused Defense Minister Irakli Alasania of pressure. Kalandadze said on the Position talk show on Rustavi 2 this Friday, that Alasania wanted him to give evidence against the former Minister Bacho Akhalaia.

Kalandadze said Alasania talked to him in a separate room before the detention claiming that the latter offered him to “cooperate” with the investigation. Kalandadze said he took Alasania’s words as part of ordinary procedure, while he said he felt surprised to see the Minister of Justice Thea Tzulukiani, Prosecutor General Archil Kbilashvili, several investigators and police officers in the next room.

It was Bacho Akhlaia who said a couple of days earlier at a court session that Alasania asked Kalandadze “to cooperate,” while Defense Minister Irakli Alasania denied this accusation via TV.