According to Anaklia Development Consortium (ADC) Director General Levan Akhvlediani, the information disseminated by media about the company’s forthcoming wind-up does not correspond to reality. He disclaimed the reports stating that ADC had started preparing to liquidation and dismissing the staff.
“There are no dismissals, we go on working in a normal mode, and meeting our obligations as recorded in our contract with Government. Someone has wrongly trated our staff meeting where we discussed our plans for the future. We have no intentions to start layoff”, declared Head of the company in charge of the Anaklia deep sea port construction project realisation. As per his story, at the time the consortium was actively engaged in attracting investors to the project as 15 October was coming i.e. the date when the company would have to present the investors to Government.
Later on Mr Akhvlediani claimed that the authorities sabotage the port construction and scheme to foil it. He said that ADC had introduced its view and appealed for negotiations with Government yet the briefing by Minister of Regional Development and Infrastructure Maya Tskitishvili displayed their negative tuning towards the project. To Akhvlediani’s opinion, if Government would terminate the agreement with ADC, as it had been voiced before, no highly reputed investor or international financial institution would take part in this venture.
On her part, Minister Maya Tskitishvili stressed upon the consortium’s liability to present the undersigned investment agreement on the project by 15 October, however ADC had only displayed the Kazakhstani fund Meridian Capital Limited and the Dutch company Van Oord though no official papers were signed while Government was aware of other investment funds being talked with.
“The agreement between Consortium and Government envisages that the latter should examine the investor, his capabilities and international renomé, after which it can approve or not this particular investor’s involvement. We have some time: till 21 and 29 October we can examine the details connected with those two funds presented as candidates’, said she. Moreover, she noted that ADC should also find a source for its own investment share amounting to $120M to bridge the gap after their main investor Conti Group withdrawal, no papers shown so far as well.
“Despite the contract with the consortium entitling us to terminate it right now, we are not going to apply it and will allow them to utilise till the end of the year all the resources left”, further advised Maya Tskitishvili, insisting that Government sees the venture as a strategically important matter and while ADC maintains it keeps negotiating with 5-6 investment funds, the former would grant a chance until the year ends.
Meanwhile Minister of Economy of Georgia Natia Turnava in the course of her speech at Tbilisi Silk Road Forum declared that the Anaklia port construction comes too late though there are hopes it will begin at least in 2020. She said it was a vital deep sea port project which would enable her country to better employ the Black Sea opportunities and make the national ports’ work more efficient and fast, which could be impossible without Anaklia port built. Further on, she assured that both herself in person and Government on the whole were always ready to any discussions on this matter, because the PPP objects would always be very complicated and require a lot of time for preparations, that’s why the Anaklia project implementation had got delayed so much.
At the same time, Head of ADC Levan Akhvlediani is sure that the ultimatum language is of no use for anybody – neither Anaklia port, nor Government. What the project needs now is the state’s support, invitation of investors, and response to challenges posed by international banks.
“If all those issues are solved, we, i.e. ADC, do undertake to accomplish the venture. There are particular issues and obstacles demanding solution, but the consortium alone cannot work it out on its own. The state’s cooperation is necessary, and we think it wrong when some Government officials make statements disclaiming in fact any responsibility of theirs. Let us hope that during the planned meetings on the project they will be more constructive”, proclaimed Levan Akhvlediani.
And finally, on 25th October ADC announced Conti Group to change their mind and stay in the consortium with the 42% share.
https://commersant.ge/ru/post/konsorcium-razvitiia-anaklia-ne-zakrivaetsia
https://commersant.ge/ru/post/konsorcium-anaklia-govorit-o-sabotaje-so-storoni-vlasti
https://commersant.ge/ru/post/konsorcium-anaklia-ne-predstavil-soglasheniia-ob-investirovanii-proekta
https://commersant.ge/ru/post/konsorcium-anaklia-poluchil-dopolnitelnoe-vremia
https://commersant.ge/ru/post/ministr-ekonomiki-transportniy-koridor-jdet-porta-anaklia
https://commersant.ge/ru/post/gendirektor-konsorciuma-anaklia-protiv-iazika-ultimatumov
https://commersant.ge/ru/post/konti-grupp-ostaetsia-v-konsorciume-anaklia