At the plenary session of the Parliament of Georgia, the Majoritarian MP from the Municipality of Adigeni, Zurab Chilingarashvili, talked about the problems facing his municipality. "Our country already has a third Prime Minister and each of them promised gasification for the population of Adigeni. You were planning to rehabilitate Abastumani prior to every election but this turned out to be a lie as well. Not even a single house is gasified in the Municipality of Adigeni and about two-thirds of them have no gas metres," said the MP.

FactCheck

took interest in the accuracy of this statement.

We wrote about the gasification process in the Municipality of Adigeni in December 2013. At that time, according to the information received from the Ministry of Energy of Georgia, the gasification process in the municipality had started in August 2012. The Arali-Akhaltsikhe 12-km main pipeline was constructed at the first stage of the project with the pipeline having reached the village of Arali at the beginning of October 2012. FactCheck

spoke with the Deputy Governor of the Municipality of Adigeni, Arsen Balakhashvili, in December 2013. According to his information, the gasification process in the municipality stopped after October 2012 and the second stage comprising the internal pipeline network did not begin in December 2013 as planned. Hence, the gasification process was not active in the period from October 2012 to December 2013. The Ministry of Energy of Georgia explained the stoppage owing to legal procedures. According to the Ministry’s information, the internal pipeline network, as the second stage of the gasification work, was to be conducted by JSC SakorgGas according to the 15 November 2013 Directive of the President of Georgia. According to this agreement, the gasification process of the Municipality of Adigeni was to be finished by 31 December 2014.

We also wrote

about Adigeni’s gasification process in February 2014. The process had not been restarted by the time of our article.

According to the Ministry of Energy of Georgia’s current information, the gasification process (specifically, the internal pipeline network) has already been completed in three villages of the Municipality of Adigeni; namely, Arali, Ude and Tsarbastumani (a total of 2,135 consumers). At this stage, these consumers are being connected to the network with the work said to be finished by September 2016. The gasification process is now being conducted by SOCAR Georgia Gas. FactCheck

spoke to the Senior Specialist of the Public Relations Service of the Municipality of Adigeni, Mamuka Kalandadze. In his conversation with us, Mr Kalandadze confirmed that consumers are being connected to the network in three of the municipality’s villages.

As for the gasification of Abastumani, Georgian Gas Transportation Company Ltd is tasked with conducting the planning and the construction work for the gas pipeline necessary to supply Abastumani with gas in 2016 and with its own financial resources according to the 25 February 2016 Directive No. 303 of the Government of Georgia published on the website of the Ministry of Energy of Georgia. The work required to connect the 675 consumers living in Abastumani to the gas network will start afterwards. FactCheck

clarified the information about the gasification of Abastumani with the Ministry of Energy of Georgia. According to the information we obtained, Abastumani’s gasification process has not yet started but is expected to begin by September 2016. The exact termination date for the process has not yet been determined.

FactCheck also wrote

about the problems in Abastumani last year. At the time, both sewer as well as drinking water systems were problematic for the population. Despite the fact that drinking water was supplied to the town, the main distributive buildings as well as a part of the internal supply network were not functioning and required immediate rehabilitation. No gasification project existed either. According to our information, the same is true for the town today. Mamuka Kalandadze did state that an Abastumani rehabilitation project is being created and should be finished by the summer which includes the implementation of a number of infrastructural projects looking to rehabilitate sewers, roads and sidewalks, the areas adjacent to the observatory and so on.

Information from the Ministry of Energy of Georgia indicates that the process of installing gas metres in the Municipality of Adigeni started in 2010. The process was completed in three villages in 2013; namely, Patara Mada, Kakhareti and Amkhevi. As of today, 5,435 consumers have had gas metres installed in their homes and an additional 500 will be installed in 2016. Unfortunately, we were not able to obtain information about the overall number of consumers in Adigeni from the Ministry. Hence, we cannot state definitively the number of consumers still in need of gas metres.

Conclusion

The gasification process in the Municipality of Adigeni started in August 2012. The 12-km main Arali-Akhaltsikhe pipeline was constructed in the first stage of the project. The work then experienced a stoppage of about one year. Information from the Ministry of Energy of Georgia indicates that the construction of the internal supply network was scheduled for completion at the end of 2014. This means that it took a year-and-a-half to gasify only three villages (Arali, Ude and Tsarbastumani) although the process remains uncompleted. September 2016 has been given as the new completion date.

No improvements are recorded for Abastumani although construction work for a pipeline necessary for supplying the town with gas is being planned for this year. In addition, an Abastumani rehabilitation project is also being prepared with completion envisaged for this summer.  FactCheck will come back to the gasification process of the Municipality of Adigeni as well as the rehabilitation of Abastumani in the future as well. At this stage, however, we conclude that Zurab Chilingarashvili’s statement is MOSTLY TRUE.