This week the main message came from the Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili. He said Anaklia port would be built with state participation.
"Several months ago, I instructed the Ministry of Economy and we are preparing a new tender. According to our decision, the port of Anaklia will be built with the participation of the state, where the state will own 51%, and we will announce an international competition for the rest and select partner companies.
This project is abandoned, the place is wrecked. Therefore, it is categorically unacceptable. We should urgently select international partner companies and we should also start investing in this project. This project will be implemented with our participation, the state will implement this project together with foreign or other companies," said the Prime Minister.
Irakli Garibashvili added that previous investors - namely Anaklia Development Consortium - could not carry out the project and the state had to cancel the contract. He used some strong words and called the appeal of investors to the international arbitration as ‘the case of robbery’.
‘Mamuka Khazaradze and Badri Japaridze invested only 3 million into the project, some 27 million was invested by other investors - and now they want to rob citizens of Georgia, taxpayers of Georgia and demand for the state to reimburse 1.5 billion. This is a sheer case of robbery’ - The Prime Minister stated on the government sitting this week.
Shortly after, The Anaklia Development Consortium (ADC) issued the following statement in response to the 12 December 2022 comments by Prime Minister Garibashvili:
"In his speech to the government meeting today about the Anaklia Port project, Prime Minister Garibashvili made a series of misrepresentations about the Anaklia Project and its past history. He also made assertions about the future of the project which are sure to fail.
We would remind the Prime Minister that the dispute between the Anaklia Development Consortium and the Government of Georgia is in arbitration at the International Chamber of Commerce in Geneva. He will be answerable for all his false statements today in that forum, as well as before the Georgian public.
A Conversation with Ted Jonas Member of Supervisory Board, ADC.
