Greetings to all of you!
It is very important for me to have the chance to meet members of my team in Tbilisi City Hall before the summer holiday. Some of you are probably planning to go on holiday, but we are continuing our work.
You represent a collective body which governs the capital city, a very important part of Georgia. I want to say that all the changes for the better that are taking place in Tbilisi are not the merit of the president, prime minister, the city's mayor or the city council chair, but rather each and every member of the Tbilisi city council, each and every employee of city hall and each and every local district administrator, as well as everyone who wishes to improve the quality of life in the city.
We are the collective leadership which does not need to cut deals, bribe people in back rooms or hush people up.
We do not cut deals with anyone on anything. We do our work!
We still have a lot to do. We have done much, but only a third of what needs to be done in Georgia and in Tbilisi. I would like to say that this effective government will continue to work actively. We will not make any compromises.
On 3 July we saw a very large number of Kutaisi city government employees get arrested. Before that, similar arrests had been made in Batumi and other regions. Yesterday, to my surprise, there was a repulsive debate on this issue in parliament.
The people are used to this and realize that those are the rules of the game of the theatre of the absurd which a certain part of the political spectrum stages from time to time. I would like to tell those people that we will expose the corrupt. We will put thieves in jail and we will return money to the people. We came to power under these slogans and we have not gone back on our word. We are very proud of the people who serve this endeavour.
But in parliament yesterday MPs mocked them. I think this is insulting not only to those people, but also to parliament and the Georgian people. Employees of law enforcement agencies fight day and night against corruption and sacrifice themselves for the public good.
Several days ago we buried an employee of the Patrol Police. He was a true hero.
There are some people with absolutely no pride who maintain that there are no longer any heroes in Georgia and there are other people who point out every day that there are heroes in Georgia and that it is possible to show heroism. We are very proud of this latter group of people.
On the other hand, people who say such things in parliament should be accountable before the Georgian people.
The elections to the Tbilisi city council last year served as a good warning to those who made noise yesterday about the battle against corruption. The people gave an appropriate response through those elections.
Those political parties have practically no representation here [the Tbilisi city council] and I think that this will be the case until the people realize that responsibility before the public is of more importance than responsibility before and solidarity among members of a clan or the interests of family, friends and relatives.
We are a country in a difficult situation because on the one hand we have achieved great economic advancement while on the other hand, the more money enters the country, the higher the risk for part of society. They could become more vulnerable. Of course there have been serious blows which damage those people's welfare. We must realize the truth and see that the need for solidarity extends to every member of society.
We all must understand that for that part of our society which has yet to experience an improvement in their daily life (of course there still are such people) even saying that everything is going well would be simply wrong and irritating. We must first of all speak to those people and give them a chance to improve their situation.
There is a complicated situation in regard to the fact that we do not have complete control over our borders.
Over the past few days you have seen how heroically the people of Shida Kartli [which includes South Ossetia] have behaved.
A few days ago [Russian peacekeeping] armoured vehicles blocked off their road and impeded locals from building a very important bypass road that would connect several villages. The ethnic composition of those villages is mixed. Personally, I am irritated when I hear the terms "Georgian side" and "Ossetian side". There are no Ossetian or Georgian sides. There is only the side of Georgia which consists of ethnic Georgians and ethnic Ossetians alike.
I was especially struck by several women at the protest near Tskhinvali who stood heroically and called on Kokoyty to come to his senses. These people are loyal children of Georgia with all their hearts, souls, blood and flesh! All the people there are like that save for a few dozen bandits in Tskhinvali, Java and the Roki Tunnel. These people deserve respect and admiration. Georgia must show solidarity with them. This is truly a historic opportunity for us!
Let us return to the road closure. The local people took roses to the Russian soldiers and painted their military vehicles with brightly coloured paint. They achieved their goal through completely peaceful means. This is exactly what will destroy all KGB technologies and illegal prisons set up there and thwart all attempts by generals to intimidate the people there.
Today Alan Parastayev is in jail in Tskhinvali. He is one of Tskhinvali's most respected citizens, who never was a big fan of the Georgian state. Then they grew suspicious that he wanted peace with the Georgians. For this they beat him mercilessly, during which time one of his kidneys burst and the other stopped functioning. Articles are being written about him today in the Washington Post and in the Russian press. Do you know what this means?
If people who would never have approached the Georgian government to cooperate are being persecuted only because some KGB general thinks that they might come over to our side, then they are truly in a bad situation. Georgia, on the other hand, is on the right path.
Of course, I am very concerned about the fate of such people. We will do all we can to ensure that such things do not happen, but our country is on the right path and as long as no-one leads us astray, undermines our unity or shifts the Georgian state onto a different track, then our train will definitely reach its ultimate destination.
I would now like to return to speaking about the city. Our city has changed greatly, though this is only the beginning. Wide-scale construction efforts are beginning only just now.
We must spare no effort and do all we can to ensure that along with the expensive and fashionable homes we also construct housing that is affordable for the people.
We must do all we can so that the so-called Khrushchevkas [Soviet apartment blocks] are gradually destroyed.
You are already standing on this path; we must create the legislative means, including offering financial assistance, so that people move from the so-called Khrushchevkas to normal living quarters.
We must do our utmost so that young families can build a future by using bank loans and other such means, so that they can obtain housing themselves and not be dependent on their parents for ever.
We have already changed a lot, but we are still faced with serious problems. The cost of public transport in the city has doubled. We all admit that this is a serious blow to the family budgets of people who use public transport. The hike in public transport prices will significantly damage the family budgets of those people who take their children to school in the morning especially if there are several children in the family. This is a serious blow to those people.
If we cannot maintain the price of public transport where it is - and it appears that we cannot - then we must at least make sure that there is a world-class public transport system in the city. We have made this decision together with [mayor] Gigi Ugulava.
This means that the number of buses in Tbilisi must at least double and that we should have to commute not in the kind of buses whose windows do not open in the scorching heat, but rather in the kind of buses that let air in and in which people breathe and move about freely and do not curse out the government or the mayor's office or city hall for having poor quality transport. This must be done in the coming months.
We have also jointly drawn up a brilliant plan for building the city's roads. This is vital given that the number of cars in the city is rising.
Earlier, all the road works were conducted in Vake, Saburtalo and Vera, while the left bank of the Mtkvari River was effectively ignored.
In order to get from Varketili [suburb on Tbilisi's eastern edge] to Mtskheta [town northwest of Tbilisi], one had to go on the airport road and through the centre of town. Now we are building a highway that would unite all the city's so-called suburbs (which soon may become the best neighbourhoods in Georgia in terms of quality of life) and allow us to get from the airport road to the Kakheti highway and also to Tskhinvali and Sukhumi.
This is a truly historic project which is valued at 150m dollars. It is what will give the city the best transport infrastructure possible.
I would also like to touch on the city's metro. The metro saved us from one of the most difficult periods the city went through.
It is very important that you are not only renovating the metro aesthetically, you are also looking to build new metro stations.
It is very significant that new neighbourhoods are being built after so many decades. High-class residential neighbourhoods are being built, not the kind of neighbourhoods like Varketili and Vazisubani, which were built in the Soviet period by directly laying a thin layer of asphalt on the sand and putting up buildings there. Nearly half of those buildings are structurally unsound because the builders pocketed the money. It is also very important that new homes be accessible for the people.
You are working hard to make the city clean. About 50m lari have been earmarked to purchase sanitary vehicles and equipment. Beyond that, Tbilisi must become a green city. Our city is not sufficiently green. This applies to all cities in Georgia, but the process must start with Tbilisi.
We must spend a lot of money and set up gardens in the city. This is not a communist slogan. We must plant trees and water them and make the city verdant. We should be proud of Tbilisi as one of the greenest cities in Europe. I remember that even during the communist period Kiev was two or three times greener than Tbilisi. We must not be stingy with money when it comes to the environment in which our children are to grow up.
Tbilisi must be equally accessible for older people and for children. We have to make it easier for relatively older people to get around and live more comfortably.
Tbilisi must become a paradise for children. This is why we are building parks and installing rides.
Today I visited the park in Borjomi...
We are not doing this to score points, but rather so that even the children of poor families can feel better outside and forget their own poverty.
They should be able to go to the best parks and squares in Europe, they should have the best carousels there and in school they should have the best desks, the best computers and the best sports facilities.
It is possible to achieve this - we have set up over 200 sports fields in Tbilisi and in the future we want to further increase the number of football fields and basketball courts.
Today in Borjomi I recalled that Georgia has had a lot of tennis stars, starting with Alika Metreveli and ending with a number of Russian tennis stars with Georgian surnames who are Georgians.
These stars must grow up in Georgia. Accordingly, we must build tennis courts everywhere.
I want to express my support for the city authorities. I want to pay special thanks to city council chair Zaza Begashvili, who remained in the post at my request. He can prove useful in many areas, and we will make sure this happens in the future, but for now the city needs to be looked after and it needs a truly consolidated leadership. This is very important.
It is indisputable that there are still a lot of issues that need resolution.
What we are doing to offer poor people health insurance is very important. Last year the city began a very important programme to this end, but in a number of cases it proved ineffective. I must rebuke the Health Ministry for this.
The ministry took over several programmes from local authorities. It must be said that the ministry was unable to make these programmes work well. Therefore, that which previously worked well when administered at the municipal level should be transferred back to the municipality - medicinal oversight, oversight on hospitals' fulfilment of insurance policies.
I hope that the Health Ministry will correct these problems. It is very good that we have opened free cafeterias for the poor and that they are working well. Of course, we may disagree on the way people are registered for free lunches, but we must never refuse a hungry person who goes there in order to get fed. This is the most important principle. On the other hand, we must not let anyone say that three times more people used the soup kitchen than actually did. That is why we developed such a form of registration that would on the one hand preserve people's dignity and on the other hand feed people who are hungry and think they need help from the state. At the same time we must establish tight controls so that no-one abuse the soup kitchens.
There are other problems as well which concern the central government more, but which we still must discuss.
There have been more and more complaints that ambulances of the 03 Emergency Medical Service are frequently late.
We created the 03 service together and we decided that it should be a very effective and important service for the people. I personally know of ten cases in which 03 ambulances arrived too late to save patients. I want to warn the Health Ministry that such occurrences must be done away with once and for all.
I need your help in this endeavour because most of these cases take place in Tbilisi, though this affects all of Georgia.
There have been attempts to shift blame: people have complained that they do not have enough ambulances or that the phone lines are too busy.
I want to tell you that there are enough vehicles and enough staff. It is the brains of the people charged with running 03 that cannot get a hold on this issue.
I strictly warn everyone whom this applies to that if the situation in this regard is not improved in the near future, then we will change things - some of those people will be sent to the place where Soso Topuridze [police chief who heads frequent televised arrests of allegedly corrupt officials] sends his detainees.
This is no joke. I think that you have long understood that I do not joke about such things.
It is very important that all municipal and public services function well. The people should feel that employees of all such agencies are serving them and not working to take home their salaries. We are showing a principled stance on this issue.
I want to draw special attention to the city's Administrative Inspectorate, which is preserving the original look of the city and is performing a very important function by doing this.
Each of the employees of this service is better than the next and they fully document their positions. Well done!
When the state is capable of showing such principle, all other services must operate on such a level that keeps society satisfied and grateful, as well as understanding of why certain steps must be taken.
That which you are creating here in Tbilisi will spread not only to the rest of Georgia, but also to many other countries. Many countries are looking at us and are delighted with what they see.
This is also very important from the standpoint of Georgia's national security. Keep in mind that countries that are successful, educated, clean, green, developed and normal are much more difficult to attack and undermine than fragmented and broken-down countries.
In this respect too, your contribution to the country's development is very important. I would like to thank you all!
I want to thank the people of Tbilisi for their support and patience, as well as for valuing your efforts.
I thank the kids who were in Borjomi today as part of the student summer employment programme. I know that there are many people registered there as well and that they will see that endeavour through to the end because it is a very important programme and part of the presidential programme that we created together.
I think that all of this should be implemented every year and that it should not be linked to political and election cycles.
I want to wish you success in your work.
I also want to welcome each member of the city council: you are the best of our society and you are leaders in all areas.
I assure you that the fact that people rarely hear you making noise speaks to your great talent and sense of honour. It also underscores that this government is effective - just the kind of government elected by the people, one which never oversteps its boundaries. I want us to continue on this path - we should have a businesslike attitude, we should work together and where necessary, we should quarrel. We must have disagreements when we cannot agree, but we must fully agree on several main principles. The main things are our fundamental principles and our loyalty to the people. We must do what the people elected us to do.
If we manage to do so, then the capital city will once and for all have a locally elected self-government body that will lay the foundation for this very important tradition.
I thank you very much for this.
press Office
of the President of Georgia