Tbilisi City Court Judge Nino Buachidze extended the special management regime, established for Georgian Manganese Ltd. in 2017, for 2 years. The court appointed Besik Kirtadze as the special manager. No information can be found online on the experience of the new manager. His candidacy was put forward by his predecessor in the job, Nikoloz Chikovani, and supported by the ministries of economy and environmental protection.
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The court ruling states that, to date, the circumstances that necessitated the establishment of a special regime in 2017 are still present. Specifically, two points of the action plan are still to be fulfilled – a new manganese sludge processing plant should be built and reserves in the licensed area should be recalculated.
The court also points out that the special administrator presented an action plan, which lists regulating cooperative mining as one of the problems to be resolved. The company intends to extract manganese in the Chiatura villages by the open-pit method, because of which more than 10 villages in the area have been obliterated. According to the plan, as the sites to be worked on by the collaborators is quite vast (over 1800 contours), the oversight of their activities is problematic for both the company and the state.
According to the court ruling, the company justifies the non-fulfillment of obligations under the special management regime (6 years) by the “Covid pandemic, the Russia-Ukraine war, and other local or global contextual circumstances beyond their control.”
Georgian Manganese has an ore mining license for 16,430 hectares in Chiatura and Sachkhere, which expires in 2047.
The company is wholly owned by Georgian American Alloys Ltd. registered in Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
Georgian Manganese was fined 416 million GEL for environmental damage inflicted from 2013-2017. On this pretext, in 2017, the state introduced a special manager into the company – one closely affiliated with Georgian Dream - Nikoloz Chikovani, who was wanted for financial crimes at one point. After the appointment of Chikovani, the fine of almost half a billion GEL was written off.
The special manager was tasked to fulfill 14 conditions, among which one of the most important was the recultivation of areas with open pits. The term of the manager appointed for three years was extended in 2020, as he failed to fulfill his obligations.
“Now that the special management regime has been extended for the third time, the court focuses on the non-fulfillment of two obligations in its statement, as if all others out of 14 have been satisfied. The ruling does not mention the new processing plant at all, which was one of the primary conditions. The new plant was to be built to replace the old ones. This factory was acquired and installed before the appointment of a special manager but was not operational. 6 years later, Chikovani found a solution and transferred the new factory to another enterprise along with obscure obligations.
The court has been receiving monthly reports from the special manager and accepting them without any issues or scrutiny.
Neither the Ministry of Environment Protection and Agriculture nor the Mineral Resources Agency inspects the quarry. The functions of the two largest state agencies are performed by the special manager himself - he conducts business on behalf of the company and oversees his own activities, and the court is happy with this,”
According to the statement of Nino Gujaraidze, executive director of the environmental organization Green Alternative, the six-year experience of special management at Georgian Manganese showed that the mechanism of the special manager was used only to whitewash the company's engagement in illegal activities.
“Unfortunately, this regime was extended for another 2 years. After 6 years, Nikoloz Chikovani stripped the responsibility and handed it over to another person of unknown competence who came out of nowhere. We know absolutely nothing about him, there is not searchable in Google, Chikovani basically left us with his heir,” says Nino Gujaraidze.
Online media outlet Georgian News contacted the Ministry of Environmental Protection and Agriculture to find out why they supported the extension of the special management regime and the appointment of Besik Kirtadze as a special manager. We did not receive any response from the Ministry.
Georgian Manganese is the largest miner in Georgia, the richest company with a turnover of hundreds of millions and an annual profit of 96 million. And the region where it operates is one of the most impoverished in the country. Every third person in Chiatura Municipality is below the poverty threshold and receives social protection.
