Press Digest 26.01.2015
“MIA must be restructured to the core; a completely new system is to be formed”
“If they start a fight against injustice, they will soon share late Vazagashvili’s fate”
New rules for farmers and land owners
“MIA must be restructured to the core; a completely new system is to be formed”
“A terrible crime has been committed recently; a father was murdered at his son’s grave; however, by estimates, the culprits aimed to perpetrate an even more unspeakable crime by eliminating Vazagashvili’s entire family.
Did you know that Zurab Vazagashvii’s birthday was coming and his family could have easily visited his grave together because of this simple reason? What if the explosion occurred then? All of them would have obviously fallen victim to it.
If we follow through with this logic, we will conclude that the killers could have easily done away with Vazagashvili without planting a bomb on his son’s grave. As you know, this man did not have bodyguards.
Generally, terrorist acts are carried out against group of people, not against one inpidual,”- declares expert Vakhtang Dzabiradze in his interview with the Kviris Palitra newspaper.
“This stomach-churning crime clearly aimed to intimidate and throw us off-balance. Such a terrible incident will obviously shake any normal right-thinking man.
We are all a little shaken today, which is why I deem this terrible incident to be a terrorist act, and investigators are simply obliged to find the culprits as soon as possible. We all know that these people had brewed some corrupt plans beforehand.
This is not a mere murder anymore; this is a politically motivated unspeakable crime which has triggered a countrywide backlash. Therefore, investigators must see this case through as soon as possible without leaving any questions from the public unanswered.
But in order to achieve this objective, purging law enforcement agencies from officials who were exposed by Yuri Vazagashvili needs to become their top priority,”- states Mr. Dzabiradze.
“You know, I would like to know what hindered them from cleansing these bodies from officials who were in any way related to this before. I do not think that Chikaidze’s decision to leave his post will change the situation for the better.
If they actually want to rectify the situation, they must begin with implementing really meaningful reforms in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and form a completely different system.
Only a rational personnel policy can extinguish the flames that have engulfed us today,”- concludes the expert.
“If they start a fight against injustice, they will soon share late Vazagashvili’s fate”
“Supposedly, witnesses of Zurab Vazagashvili’s murder are representatives of our law enforcement agencies under the former government. Zurab Vazagashvili’s friends have refused to provide any details regarding these witnesses in order to secure their safety.
Tens of former Georgian authorities, including high officials from our law-enforcement agencies, are comfortably nested in the Ukrainian government today; certainly, some people who possess information about that terrible special operation can easily be among their ranks,”- reports the Rezonansi newspaper.
A statement that the witnesses mentioned by Yuri Vazagashvili are from Ukraine was issued by the former Prime Minister, who allegedly talked with late Vazgashvili a couple of days prior to the incident.
“We met several days before his death and we had another meeting planned. We agreed that I would help him as much as I could until the investigation of his son’s murder was complete, to end any suspicions that the guilty would go unpunished. He told me that the investigation was nearing its end and was happy that new witnesses from Ukraine were willing to cooperate with the investigation. He even mentioned quite a few last names,”- stressed Ivanishvili.
By the way, Ivanishvili is not the only person who possesses information regarding these witnesses and knows them,”- says the article.
Vazagashvili‘s lawyers and friends as well as politicians allege that they know the names of the witnesses but are reluctant to provide any information regarding them. According to parliamentary majority member Zakaria Kutsnashvili, last thing they need now is the death of a key witness.
After Ivanishvili named the witnesses’ whereabouts, some suspicions instantly emerged; as they say, these people served within law enforcement agencies under National Movement. Lawyer Shalva Khachapuridze declared that these allegations ring true and stressed that each detail of the case is known to him; however, because of some understandable reasons, he refrains from giving out any details regarding this issue,”- says the article.
“This terrorist act was not aimed at Yuri Vazagashvili only; this was a message to each and every of us who is fighting for the restoration of justice. By eliminating this man, they sent a warning to others that if they don’t stop fighting against injustice, they will soon share his fate,”- states lawyer Khachapuridze.
New rules for farmers and land owners
"From February, land-poor farmers will receive special cards via which they will get free land. By giving these cards to our farmers, the government will then enter a new stage of the assistance program; within which the owners of unplowed land will be forced to pay higher taxes,”- reports the Kviris Palitra newspaper.
800 thousand beneficiaries will get involved in the Supporting Land-poor Farmers’ Work program. They will get agricultural as well as tilling cards valued at 60 million GEL. Tilling cards call for 140 GEL being spent on 1 ha of land, while implementation points of agricultural are cards equal to 50 laris.
By distributing these cards to our farmers, they will see through a 3-year program of motivating our farmers to till as much land as possible,”- declares Minister of Agriculture Otar Danelia.
“All his land has, in fact, been abandoned since our farmers lacked financial resources as well as technical means to work the land. After the program was implemented, they started cultivating more land; however, 350 ha of our land are still unattended. Clearly, all these resources must be utilized as soon as possible.
This issue deserves our careful attention; we have already analyzed everything thoroughly by trying to find the best balance between export and import as well as gauging our agricultural potential. Clearly though, we cannot use all available resources if land is left uncultivated.
The program to motivate our farmers to cultivate land has gone on for three consecutive years; however, 1\3 is still left without attention from our farmers, which is why to bring about positive changes in this field, we decided to introduce different encouraging methods, some of which are really effective: for instance, whoever tills land gets a tax break.
It is also worth noting that the Supporting Land-poor Farmers’ Agricultural Work program envisages funding of those farmers who had no more than five hectares of agricultural land in their ownership; therefore, those farmers who own less than 5 ha of lands will be exempt from taxes on uncultivated land.
Those citizens who use land for their private economic affairs will be forced to grant them on lease if they refuse to till them. Other initiatives will also be implemented,”- maintains the respondent.
"The three-year program supporting and motivating farmer has already been accomplished; however, we plan to discuss and bring about other initiatives to assist them. One of the most important issues on our agenda today is to make producing agricultural products more viable by uniting land.
We have already introduced agricultural insurance programs as well as hail protection systems. We plan to execute other interesting projects to produce highly competitive products and minimize losses in our agricultural system,”- states the Minister.
It is also noteworthy that we plan to broaden cooperation with Germany, where a Georgian pavilion within the International Green Week Exhibition enjoyed great publicity and approval from visitors,”- concludes the Minister.
