ARTICLE: Grand Designs on Hold in Georgia. By Nino Gerzmava

(iwpr.net) Plans for whole new city shelved, but port may yet be built.

By Nino Gerzmava - Caucasus

CRS Issue 669, 14 Dec 12

Georgia’s new government has placed all of President Mikhail Saakashvili’s ambitious infrastructure plans on hold. Thousands of people have been put out of work while the administration reviews the economic rationale for a range of projects including an all-new city. 

 

Prime Minister Bidzina Ivanishvili’s administration argues that many projects like building a city called Lazika are too far-fetched to go ahead.

Deputy Economy Minister Dmitri Kumsishvili says the government will still push ahead with plans to develop tourism and industry, although projects in these sectors also need to be looked at.

“Tourism is one of the main priorities for the Georgian government. The projects that are on hold will be re-examined with regard to cost and effectiveness,” he said. “Our first step will be to create a council of consultants to study the tourism sector and present recommendations.”

It was just a year ago that Saakashvili unveiled plans for Lazika, which he promised would be Georgia’s second city with a population of half a million, and the major gateway on the Black Sea. Apart from the residential homes, shops and official buildings that would be required, Lazika was to get a port larger than the existing ones at Poti and Batumi. (See Georgian Leader Unveils Grand City Plan.)

Three years earlier, Saakashvili launched resort projects at Anaklia and Ganmukhuri by the sea, and at Mestia in the Caucasus mountains.

Along a two-kilometre seafront at Anaklia, workers rapidly built a promenade, hotels, swimming pools, restaurants, a concert hotel, a yacht club and a 500-metre bridge over the mouth of the River Inguri. Mestia got a ski centre, hostels, a new bridge and 130 km of road for access.

The construction boom created a lot of new jobs – 3,000 in the Samegrelo–Zemo Svaneti region, according to provincial governor Alexander Kobalia.

“For years, we sat at home with nothing to do,” Anaklia resident Goga Gerantia recalled. “At least recently we’ve been able to breathe a little. Some people worked as builders, others opened shops, and some of my neighbours got jobs in hotels and restaurants.

“In Samegrelo, where no one had laid one brick on top of another for decades, they built a whole resort. People were hoping for a better future.”

President Saakashvili’s party lost a parliamentary election on October 1, leaving the government in the hands of billionaire Ivanishvili’s Georgian Dream coalition.

A constitutional reform is in train to make the prime minister and parliament more powerful than the president, and as a result Saakashvili is left unable to force through his pet projects.

A wave of unemployment has hit Samegrelo–Zemo Svaneti, where much of the work was focused.

“A few months ago, Anaklia, Ganmukhuri and Mestia were flourishing,” Levan Konjaria, chairman of the town council in Zugdidi, the centre of Samegrelo-Zemo Svaneti, said. “Now there’s just a few cows wandering around. The building work has stopped. This region needs attention, or all that work will have been in vain.”

Visiting the region on December 4, Saakashvili expressed regret that the projects had been frozen. He put the number of people who had lost their jobs at 6,500 people.

“You can’t sacrifice work on which so many families depend just to spite one man,” he said. “Forget that it was Saakashvili’s idea, say the idea came from the prime minister or someone else, but just build.”

He stressed that Lazika was still a good idea. “Forty-five per cent of Georgia’s population lives in villages. We need a new urban centre that offers people job opportunities,” he said.

Most of the building companies under contract have declined to speak to the press, with some saying they are under investigation by state prosecutors.

Soso Keidia, one of the founders of the Sunny construction firm, said its director had been arrested.

“No one wants to say anything. Everyone is awaiting the next steps taken by the new government,” he said. “Over 1,000 Sunny workers on big building projects in the new resort zone have been thrown out into the street as work stop for an unknown period.”

Saakashvili alluded to the investigations during his visit, saying, “Even local government is feeling the pressure from prosecutors. It is being asked why it spent money on building Lazika.”

He insisted, “This money was spent because I ordered it. I did this, and whatever they say, I will finish the job.”

Even if Lazika is dead as a concept, the port facilities may yet see the light of day.

“Building a city is absurd, but as for a port, that’s more realistic,” Ivanishvili said. “But right now, I don’t have a precise project or a precise answer.”

David Narmania, the minister for regional development and infrastructure, said discussions on the port were still going on, even though work on it was suspended.

“Negotiations are taking place with investors about building a port,” he said.

Nino Gerzmava is an IWPR-trained journalist in Georgia.

ARCHITECTURE: Government considers planned new city Lazika

(dfwatch.net) TBILISI, DFWatch — The new government has still not decided whether to implement Saakashvili’s idea of building a completely new city Lazika in Georgia.

 

The new government have different ideas about the plan to build a city with half a million people on the Black Sea shores near the conflict zone.

Building Lazika city was an unexpected idea which Mikheil Saakashvili described in one of his speeches at the end of 2011, when no one had heard of it. There has been debate over whether it is right to build a completely new city if there are a number of old cities needing rehabilitation, and whether it will attract new investors.

At first, in the beginning of October, when the election results weren’t final, Bidzina Ivanishvili, the current Prime Minister, said there is no need to build Lazika and he said Lazika is Saakasvhili’s largest joke.

“Why should a city be built on that swamp, for whom will it be, when all of Georgia is almost empty,” he said.

However, the day before being approved as Prime Minister, Bidzina Ivansihvili said building Lazika is absurd, but a port may still be built there.

He said he is badly informed about the issue and cannot give specific answers, but the government will review this issue. The Prime Minister thinks building a port is more realistic.

Giorgi Kvirikashvili, who is Georgia’s new economy minister, stated that the new economy team has way much important priorities than building Lazika.

“I doubt someone will have time for Lazika in the nearest future,” he said a week before being approved to his new post. “This is not an infrastructure project, but it is about building a new city, which may be implemented by participation of private investors and their desire, but not by forcing someone.”

The period before the election President Saakashvili spoke about different projects in Lazika. At the end of September he visited a place for the future city stating that constructions of a church is to start soon, which will be a copy of Bana Cathedral, Georgian cathedral built in VII, which is on territory of Turkey right now.

Mikheil Saakashvili said then that a port of Lazia will be the largest in Georgia’s sea coast and port will host large-ton ships.

President described each corner of the city where there will be located logistic centers, plants, water pipes.

“Georgia needs Port Lazika if we want to have large income,” he said adding that 1500-2000 people will be employed.

Previous government planned to dry swamps, build business-centers, city hall, hotels and Lazika would have own airport.

Two building constructions are already finished. Those are port administration, which used to be living building of Interior Ministry, but was transferred into port administration now having poster attached ‘Lazika Port’; and another building is Lazika City Hall.

Different projects and drawings of future city was released by initiators, including Georgia’s famous house of Justice, a glass building; 3d commercial of the city was also released.

Another point of Lazika construction supporters is that new city will have political opportunities as it will be located close to Georgia’s breakaway Abkhazia, which is currently occupied by Russia.

Kakha Bendukidze, who former economy minister is chair of Free University, explains that Lazika may create door or a window, which will give Abkhaz population to look in Georgia, come to Georgia and cooperate with this part of the country, he told Rustavi 2 TV.

“If we do everything right, then Lazika will become for Abkhaz populations, what West Berlin used to be for East Berlin population in its time,” he explained.

However, new government officials do not go in details while commenting about fate of the new city. Yet it is known that port of the new city may be finished, but people working in the port should live somewhere, critics say.

When budget draft was presented for 2012 to parliament, which approved the draft at the end of 2011, Lazika wasn’t mentioned there. However, money was allocated from the state for constructions of highway, bridges and a house of justice in Lazika.