Interior Ministry Vows to Employ Locals as It Occupies Kutaisi Parliament Building
By Gvantsa Gabekhadze
Friday, December 7
The Georgian Ministry of Internal Affairs vows that working places will be created for locals when the body occupies the Kutaisi parliament building for the police regional hub from January next year.
The statement came after the sharp criticism of the opposition who were against the returning of legislative activities to the capital city.
The United National Movement and the European Opposition parties say that the relocation of parliament activities from Tbilisi to Kutaisi under the United National Movement in 2012 played its role for the state decentralization and development of the western Georgian town.
Deputy Interior Minister Natia Mezvrishvilli says that the handing over the building to them will also play its role for the regional development.
"A regional police hub of West Georgia will be located in the Kutaisi Parliament building, where we will offer various police services to the Western Georgian population, which will somewhat contribute to the employment of locals.
“Various police services will be united there as we have it in Tbilisi Service Center, where up to 50 police services are provided to the population,” Mezvrishvili says.
The parliament building in Kutaisi was the initiative of former President Mikheil Saakashvili.
Kutaisi parliament was opened in May 2012 and after several months, in October of the same year, the current ruling Georgian Dream defeated the nine-year rule of the United National Movement.
Many in the Georgian Dream party have stated that the location of the parliament in Kutaisi is inconvenient.
In 2014 holding of parliament committee meetings was allowed in the historic parliament building of Tbilisi.
More than 340 million GEL was spent on the construction of the Kutaisi parliament.
In 2012 the Georgian Dream ruling party did not manage to change the parliament’s location as they did not have the constitutional majority in the legislative body, 113 lawmakers in the 150-member parliament.
However, after the 2016 parliamentary elections, the Georgian Dream MPs occupied 116 seats in the body and the party managed to change the law and the parliamentary activities will be fully returned to Tbilisi from January 2019.
