Smells Like Corruption - Kobakhidze Regarding European Parliament Deputy on Namakhavni HPP

While being on air at TV company Imedi Kobakhidze talked about the draft law initiated in the parliament on agents of foreign influence and focused on the protest against Namakhvani HPP, which took place in 2020-21.

“There were different interests when the actual construction of Namakhvani HPP was blocked. This HPP is extremely important for Georgia to strengthen its energy independence, and not only. The construction of these and several other hydro power plants is of existential importance for our economy to catch up with energy development.

The more the economy develops, the more electricity consumption increases. Not only people need it, who will have more income due to economic growth and therefore have a greater demand for energy resources, but also enterprises that expand or are created based on the growth of the economy. If the economy does not catch up with the economic growth, then a serious crisis, a serious problem is created.

In these two years, we have had double-digit economic growth - the year before and last year, right? Energy development could not catch up with this, among other things, because the construction of Namakhvani HPP was blocked, where there were political interests. I know whose interests it was, but let's judge in general. There could be interest here, for example, of import companies. It might have been the interest of the Russian side - of course, Russia prefers to sell its electricity to Georgia, instead of producing our own electricity. First, the Russian side benefits from this, and we are still dependent on Russian imports in terms of electricity, and in addition, the degree of energy dependence remains high.

There were other subjects as well. Besides this possible side, there was another possible side. There were specific organizations, non-governmental organizations that receive funding from specific sources. For example, EED, which is known in Georgia because Karl Hartzell made them pay for Melia's bail. There are also NEs in the United States. There are such organizations that finance non-governmental organizations for various purposes. In this case, there were specific non-governmental organizations that were financed from this type of sources and that also actively participated in protests, the political goal of which, frankly, was weakening the energy independence of the country. It was a political goal.

I mentioned EED, it is a structure officially established by the European Union, and one of the board members of this organization is Ms. Hautala, a former or current MEP, at least she was a MEP before. She came out directly when it seemed that non-governmental organizations activities were not enough and directly supported the protest aimed at limiting energy independence in Georgia.

When such things happen, we do not limit anything here either. Hautala can also say the same thing as she said in the past, those organizations can also participate in the protest actions, whose purpose is to block energy growth in Georgia. The only thing that is done by this draft law and what we like about this draft law is that it all becomes transparent, that’s it. Georgian people will know that those organizations that are protesting and blocking Namakhvani HPP construction are financed from various sources - it may be the North, it can be the West and it can be the East", said Kobakhidze.

According to GD chairman, Heidi Hautala's statements smells like corruption: “We are worried that these corruption problems [in the European Parliament or in the executive structures of the European Union] will find a direct reflection on the processes developed in Georgia. Obviously, there is a smell of corruption in all this, especially when Hautala comes out and blocks Namakhvani HPP construction, I don't know what could be behind it. How would Hautala know whether Namakhvani HPP is good for Georgia or not. It is a bit unimaginable that she has this kind of information and is interested in such matter at all. She suddenly comes out and joins the protest movement... If I'm not mistaken, already the sixth MEP, including officials, has been caught due to corruption scandals. When it comes to taking money from Arabs, investigations are conducted quite quickly, but it seems that when money comes from Georgian sources, the investigation is not so fast.”

The movement “Save the Rioni Valley” started protests against the Namakhvani HPP cascade in October 2020. It was the first time in recent years that tens of thousands of people joined a movement started by a self-organized group, and the protests continued for 20 months.

“I welcome this new type of mobilization of the Georgian people against the backward and destructive economic model. The lack of transparency and accountability regarding secret contracts is shocking”, - this is how Heidi Hautala, European Parliaments vice-president and a member of the “Greens - European Free Alliance” party, responded to the actions against Namakhvanhesi HPP in June 2021.

Before that, on April 22, she wrote on Twitter that she supports the Greens of Georgia and local non-governmental organizations that are protesting Namakhvani hydropower station construction in western Georgia.

According to Varlam Goletiani, head of the “Save the Rioni Valley” movement, the government is going to renew Namakhvani HPP construction and is trying to discredit the organizations that worked on this topic.

According to the audit report, from October 15, 2020 to July 31, 2021, the “Save the Rioni Valley” movement received 283,498 GEL as a donation. Donors are fully resident and emigrated Georgian citizens.