Transparency International Georgia has evaluated the performance of the City Council of Zugdidi (hereinafter referred to as the Zugdidi City Council) in 2023. This report is based on information that we requested from the City Council, the data available on the City Council’s official webpage, and our organization’s observations.

● The reporting period has seen some improvements in the Zugdidi City Council’s performance of its oversight function over the work of the City Hall and legal entities, largely due to the fact that the opposition political parties constitute the majority in the City Council while the Georgian Dream is in the minority;

● The failure of the City Council to identify conflicts of interest or any other irregularities in the public procurement process is worrisome, despite the fact that individual City Council deputies have openly discussed the issue;

● The amendments to the Self-Government Code initiated by the ruling party have significantly diminished the role of the City Council. The most problematic among them are the amendments introduced in December 2022, which stipulate that a failure to approve the budget within three months after the beginning of the budget year results in the early termination of the powers of the City Council alone, whereas under the previous version of the Code, this would have resulted in the early termination of the powers of both the mayor and the City Council;

● The mayor of Zugdidi municipality did not present a report on the work for 2023 to the City Council; the reports were presented by the municipal services, eight of which were positively assessed by the City Council’s commissions, whereas the report of the Supervision Service was negatively assessed by the City Council’s Commission on Economics, Urban Development, and Property Management;

● Having heard the reports of Zugdidi municipal services and legal entities established by the municipality, the City Council formulated conclusions and recommendations on the performance of municipal services and legal entities, which were approved by a decree of the Bureau of the City Council;

● The Zugdidi City Council held 21 sessions, of which nine were extraordinary;

● The Zugdidi City Council adopted 57 resolutions, of which 46 were authored/initiated by the Zugdidi City Hall, and the remaining 11 resolutions by the City Council;

● The Zugdidi City Council did not approve the report on budget execution for 2022;

● Out of 45 members in the Council Zugdidi municipality, only one, Irakli Gogokhia, filled in his asset declaration with irregularities;

● As in the previous year, the factions in the City Council worked intensively: in 2023, a total of 27 written initiatives were submitted; in some cases, they demanded the solution of several issues with one initiative;

● Total expenditures for the activities of the factions amounted to GEL 432,025, of which GEL 403,228 went to salaries;

● Of the 14 female members of the City Council, seven hold positions, including three as commission chairpersons, one as the faction chairperson, and three as deputy faction chairpersons;

● Like in 2022, in 2023, the Gender Equality Council did not analyze legal acts or carry out an expert review of draft legislation. Nor did it introduce the system of monitoring and evaluation of measures implemented to ensure gender equality;

● During the reporting period, 210 absences from council sessions were recorded, including 163 without valid reasons; council members also did not attend commission sittings. A total of 558 cases of absence were recorded, including 466 without good reasons;

● Mamuka Kurashvili from the Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia faction missed the council sessions without a valid reason most often (11 sessions). As for the sittings of commissions, the leader by the number of absences was Joni Jikia, the deputy chairperson of Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia, (39 sessions);

● Eleven out of 45 members of the Zugdidi City Council did not use their right to speak or make a report;

● In 2023, a total of GEL 1,917,257 was spent on the activities of the Zugdidi City Council, up by GEL 615,027 compared to a corresponding figure for 2022. Of the mentioned amount, GEL 1,632,883 was spent on salaries, including GEL 63,976 given to the staff of the City Council office as bonuses;

● In 2023, GEL 186,714 was spent on reimbursement of council member expenses, GEL 89,892 was spent on fuel, GEL 4,748 on telephone communication, and GEL 3,020 on business trips;

● The fuel limit for the Chairperson of the City Council was lowered from 700 to 400 liters, and for deputy chairpersons from 400 to 350 liters;

● In 2023, the Zugdidi City Council spent 33.9 tons of fuel worth GEL 89,892. Among the council members, the largest amount of fuel, 4,170 liters, was spent by Chairperson of the City Council Giga Parulava, and among the faction members, the largest amount of fuel, 1,759 liters, was spent by the Chairperson of Georgian Dream-Democratic Georgia, Irakli Gogokhia;

● Since June 2022, based on a decision of the City Council, the members of the Council are no longer reimbursed for telephone expenses.