All employees of Rustavi self government departments will take their December salaries boosted. True, this resolution is like a pre Christmas gift by Santa Claus, but as the last one does not exist, things to be done by Santa are made by those people who “have to do still a lot ahead”.  

GEL 291’000 were freed From 2010 Rustavi budget. The thing is that the program “Cooperative – big potential” that works on keeping dwelling houses of Rustavi in good condition, effected a saving. Thus, GEL 217’62 were returned to the budget. As a result of cost savings also GEL 22’000 were saved on “Rustavkaloba”. In the whole, they gained GEL 291’032 - freed sum- as they call it. 

“City Assembly was invited and that sum was divided up in their salaries. Hence, there is the following situation: an employee of the Department whose salary is about GEL 400-500, will be given a rise of GEL200 in December. The same will refer to the employees of City Hall, City Assembly and Territorial Management Bodies of the city. That was done instead of spending the above mentioned sum on settling one specific problem of the city. If they did not make such steps, the savings might be spent on the teachers working in kindergartens who have salaries of GEL 160 or they could give the sum to Rustavi population whose roofs are leaking and falling apart. Such citizens and generally vulnerable groups whose yearly incomes are no more than the monthly ones of the employees in our department, unfortunately make up a large number in the city. 

What City Assembly did is a good sign of the fact that self government is not oriented on the people yet” – says a member of Rustavi City Assembly Alexander Akhvlediani

Rustavi City Hall has distributed 291 thousand GEL among self government officials for their labour compensation according to the following scheme:  

36 thousand GEL were given to the local assembly state machinery, 17 thousand - to City Hall Administration Office. 13 thousand - to Supervision Service, 5 thousand - to City Hall Press Service, 3 thousand – to Infrastructural and Construction Services of City Hall, 3 thousand – Georgia Department of Economic Development and 4 thousand – 
to part-time staff of City Hall. 

The remaining sum was granted to the Departments of Territorial Management – City Halls. Also for some reason, expenses of City Hall Offices have raised and together with the above mentioned changes it was recorded that GEL 2’000 were allocated for purchasing drinking water for Rustavi City Hall.  

“It is our fault that we pay so much money for water. We have fixed tariff GEL 3 and did not even find out whether the entity is a Swedish or Turkish company. Anyway, if such a lot of sum is needed for purchasing water for City Hall members, I am personally ready not to drink any water at the sessions at all” – says Akhvlediani.  

At the same session of the City Hall, they boosted the salary from 395 to 1’200 GEL for Director of Rustavi Library Union.  

Kakha Gugenidze – Head of Rustavi City Hall - refrains from making any comments about the above mentioned issue.