Former Batumi mayor remains in pre-trial detention
By Natalia Kochiashvili
Thursday, October 17
Batumi City Court has rejected the defense's motion to change the measure of imprisonment for the former mayor of Batumi, Giorgi Ermakov’ - bail.
The court refused to change pre-trial bail for two other defendants, former City Hall officials Archil Vanadze and Egarslan Lomadze as well. The lawyers demanded 100-100 thousand GEL bails.
Also, the defense presented to the court an agreement reached between the family of Giorgi Ermakov and the current mayor of Batumi, Lasha Komakhidze, on October 7. The ex-mayor's family is ready to pay GEL 384,000 for financial loss if Ermakov is found guilty.
The position of the Prosecutor's Office was that there was a big difference between the proposed property fee and the damage to the state budget - GEL 1,370,000, and the agreement with the City Hall was not a new substantive circumstance and could not be the basis for a change of preventive measure. In addition, the prosecution stated that the current mayor of Batumi, Lasha Komakhidze, had no right to sign such an agreement without the consent of the City Council. The defense did not agree with this argument.
Giorgi Ermakov was the Mayor of Batumi in 2014-2017. Ermakov and six other former officials of Batumi City Hall and Adjara government were arrested on May 2019 on charges of embezzlement and abuse of power.
According to the Adjara Prosecutor, the investigation revealed the following: According to the decision of the members of the Standing Tender Commission of Batumi City Hall on October 9, 2015, the City Hall announced an e-tender for the construction of “Cheap Home.”
According to tender conditions, the thin-walled structures with lightweight construction needed to be used for the construction of the house. Before the announcement of the tender, the leadership of the City Hall and the tender committee members were aware that in Georgia only one company had the experience in construction with light steel thin-walled structures, which is why they proposed them to construct “Cheap House” before the tender. However, only one foreign company branch “Convert Georgia” participated in the tender.
Finally, based on gratuitously designed project accounting documents and without conducting market research on the prices quoted in the documentation, I participated in the electronic tender with only one bidder, the foreign company branch "Convert Georgia."
In the course of this tender, Convert Georgia submitted false documentation to the Unified Procurement System. The members of the tender commission did not discuss the suspicious documentation presented at all. Whereas, in another electronic tender announced by the Batumi City Hall on May 1, 2015, the same documentation submitted in the Unified State Procurement System of a foreign-owned branch of Convert Georgia became one of the grounds for Convert Georgia's disqualification.
Yet, Hall's permanent commission members illegally granted the bid to this bidder and declared that company as the winner. Afterwards, Convert Georgia submitted to the tender commission a bank guarantee for securing the contract issued by Pont Bank Ltd which had Aviso in one of the banking institutions of Georgia but happened to be an inactive company, which was not a banking institution at all.
During the same period, a letter of recommendation of the National Bank of Georgia was sent to the Batumi City Hall, which directly obliged the banking institutions to have bank guarantees only from highly trusted international or Georgian commercial banks.
Contrary to the above, instead of the Batumi Mayor and the permanent members of the tender commission defending the legitimate interest of the state, terminating the tender and not concluding a public procurement contract, Convert Georgia signed a public interest contract worth GEL 4 280 000.
After signing the contract, Convert Georgia submitted the advance bank guarantee from the same non-bank, inactive company, Point Bank Ltd, to the Batumi City Hall, despite the fact that the head of the Batumi City Hall and his deputy were aware that the guarantee company was not a banking institution and the bank guarantee was not unconditional and irresistible. Convent Georgia was unjustly credited with a cash advance amounting to GEL 626,396, - Convert Georgia carried out work worth only GEL 251 109. The rest of the amount of work is still incomplete.
As a result, legitimate state interests were violated through the abuse of power and authority of Batumi mayor and various officials, which resulted in an illegal preference for Convert Georgia and unreasonable transfer of advance payments. According to the report of the State Audit Office, budget funds of GEL 1 370 000 were embezzled, causing material damage to the municipality and the state budget respectively.
According to the investigation, the case relates to the tender for the implementation of a social project, “Cheap Home” in Batumi in 2015, which resulted in a budget deficit of GEL 1 370 000.
Three of the 7 defendants remain in pre-trial detention. On September 24, Batumi City Court changed imprisonment with bail for Bagrat Manvelidze, Bagrat Khalvashi, Tengiz Petridze and Vladimir Khintibidze.
