City Hall demands changes in the contract with C.T. Park
By Thea Mariamidze
Thursday, April 30
Tbilisi City Hall is starting negotiations with C.T. Park asking for changes in the contract signed in 2007 during the previous government.
The C.T. Park has operated in Tbilisi for almost eight years, regulating the city’s parking system. However, the service costs and rules have raised various questions about the company among the people, who disapprove the work of the company.
The government is also unsatisfied with the work of City Park and has stressed many times that the agreement is unprofitable for the city but cannot cancel the contract, because according to the international auditing company Ernst & Young, the cancellation of the agreement will cost the Mayor’s office 25 million GEL in expenses.
City Hall is asking changes in four items of the agreement: a reduction in the company’s right on taking vehicles to a special towing lot; a change to the unequal distribution of the income; a limit in parking on sidewalks; a cancellation of the item of agreement, according to which the C.T. Park had an exclusive right to arrange and administer parking lots.
City Hall believes that these changes will allow the emergance other companies on a market and a competitive environment in the field will improve the service.
The independent member of Tbilisi city council, Aleko Elisashvili, disapproves of the steps taken by City Hall and demands the immediate suspension of the agreement.
According to him, City Park and the former Tbilisi Administration made a corruptive agreement, which the Prosecutor’s office can prove, but the inaction of the current government causes doubts that there has been made a covert agreement between the two sides.
Elisashvili stated that from now he is organizing the civil disobedience action and called on the citizens to participate in the rallies held before City Hall.
“I call on the population not to pay the fines and bills in order to make the C.T Park and City Hall see our position and protest,” Elisashvili MP stated.
The rallies will last for two weeks and aim to push the Mayor’s office take appropriate steps.
The Deputy Mayor of Tbilisi Irakli Lekvinadze refused the accusations of Elisashvili and asked that citizens take no actionf in favor of this political speculation.
According to him, the Mayor’s office cannot cancel the agreement because the contract is unprecedented and unequivocal and tends to the side of the parking company, as well as the cancellation compensation of 25 million GEL is a lot of expense for the city budget.
“I would like to mention that this unprofitable agreement was made during the previous administration of the city and the City Hall is doing its best to consider the interests of citizens within the modified agreement,” Lekvinadze said.
