The Committee, presided by the Chair Sozar Subari, deliberated with I reading the Bill on Local Self-Government Code by MPs: Giorgi Khojevanishvili, Eka Sepiashvili, Nino Latsabidze, Anzor Bolkvadze and Viktor Japaridze.

The Chair once again clarified the essence of the document and noted that due to the pandemic a number of economic activities were delayed, which caused problems for certain businesses, mainly small and medium-sized businesses.

According to him, as early as last spring, the Tbilisi City Hall was given certain powers, which were extended again in the fall, and with these powers the City Hall has the right to grant concessions to those economic entities that rent or have bought at an auction certain spaces from the City Hall. The Parliament proposed to extend the same concessions to the regions as well. According to S. Subari, this opinion was taken into account in the Committee and the relevant initiative was introduced accordingly.

As S. Subari added, the initiative was upheld by the mandatory Committees, although the Human Rights and Civil Integration Committee made some remarks, in particular regarding its own discretion, which will be given to the mayor of the municipality. With the proposed amendments, these powers are very broad, and the Human Rights and Civil Integration Committee believes that the wording of the powers proposed by the initiators of the Bill should provide more specific and clear frameworks, thus avoiding possible misapplication of this initiative.

Harping on the initiative, First Deputy Chair of the Committee, Giorgi Khojevanishvili noted that the Human Rights and Civil Integration Committee supports the idea of the Bill, but calls for more concretization of certain issues. According to him, the Committee also discussed the validity of the law and agreed that it would be more appropriate if the deadline is set for October 1 instead of September 1.

Thus, the presented changes are preconditioned by the pandemic and specify the rule of changing or revoking terms (conditions) for the owner or the leaseholder of the property sold at an auction or transferred for rent by the municipality (other than Tbilisi Municipality).

The Committee approved the Bill taking the remarks into account.