The new owner of Rustavi 2 Kiber Khalvashi, who was given 100% of the company’s shares on 18 July (Caucasus Watch reported), is going to sell the broadcasting company.
Khalvashi said that Rustavi 2 is in a “catastrophic situation” due to the debts the company faces and that his financial ability is not enough to pull the company out of a deep crisis. “Its credit debt is approaching 70,000,000 GEL, of which 27,000,000 GEL alone are owed to the state. Rustavi 2 is in debt to practically everyone - from water supply companies to an American exit polls company. The vast majority of overall debt has been accumulated over the last few years, during the period I started the dispute, and it is clear that everything happened knowingly,” he said.
He also spoke about the company’s former director general Nika Gvaramia, saying that he practically used to rob the company. “Today, the former director general of the TV company openly threatens to destroy the company he was responsible for for seven years. It is clear to me, that he has been destroying the company from the very first day of the dispute and, in fact, he has already fulfilled his threats,” Khalvashi’s statement reads.
Khalvashi now hopes to sell the company within one week “through a transparent auction to those who will pay the highest price. He added that the only person to which he is not willing to sell the company is the former President of Georgia and the former informal owner of the company, Mikheil Saakashvili.
In the wake of the upcoming sale of Rustavi 2, Ia Kitsmarishvili, one of the spouses of Rustavi 2 TV co-founder Erosi Kitsmarishvili filed a lawsuit to the Tbilisi City Court requesting 30% of the company shares. She claimed that Erosi himself applied to the court earlier in 2009 with the same demand, but the court did not satisfy the request.
Meanwhile, the arrest of the former director general of Rustavi 2 Nika Gvaramia (Caucasus Watch reported) is also drawing attention. Gvaramia refused to pay his pretrial release bail, saying that it is a matter of principle to him. 14 NGOs in Georgia, including Transparency International Georgia, the International Society for Fair Elections and Democracy, the Georgian Democracy Initiative and the UN Association of Georgia, stated their concerns that Gvaramia’s prosecution might be politically motivated.
