Water not Accessible to IDPs
The Georgian Young Layers’ Association (GYLA) unveiled a report, ‘Monitoring of Works Undertaken in Support of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs)’, in the office of the Open Society Georgia Foundation (OSGF) On December 13.
The first report on the monitoring of spending of financial resources allocated for IDPs at the Donors’ Conference (held in Brussels on August 22, 2008) was published in 2010. It focused only on the construction and rehabilitation of IDP houses. However, the donor funds were provided for other construction purposes as well, for instance, building communication systems in the places of IDP settlement. During the second phase, the GYLA studied materials reflecting construction of water, electric and gas supply systems in the concrete places. Besides, representatives of GYLA took site visits to check actually performed works.
The monitoring revealed violations basically in the construction of the water supply system for the IDP populated areas. The monitoring, in particular, found discrepancies between contractual terms and actually performed works. Contractors often failed to meet agreement terms, while the state failed to demand repairing defects from them. The report also addresses the poor quality of performed work and related IDP complaints. Furthermore, the report points out the necessity to take into account local population needs when planning the works and to involve IDPs in a decision-making process. However, a GYLA representative says that the second 
monitoring showed better results compared to the first one.
Tamar Kordzaia: ‘Violations exposed during the second phase of the monitoring were less important compared to those found during the first phase. Unlike the previous phase, we did not find any excessive amount spent by the state. The number of violations in case of tenders was fewer compared to the number identified in the 2010 report. We noted than that sometimes the agreement funds exceeded the amount offered during the tender even three times. Moreover, the agreements were made with the same companies. We think that the government has started considering remarks and recommendations provided as a result of the monitoring’.
The monitoring was conducted as part of the ‘Transparency and Accountability Support in Georgia’, a project financed jointly by the Open Society Institute and the OSGF.
See the Georgian version of the report.
Articles related to the topic:
Water not Accessible to IDPs – Liberali, an online magazine, 13 December, 2011, the author: Tamar Paradashvili