Usupashvili: 'Current Georgian Public Broadcaster Board can’t be trusted'

Georgia's Parliament Speaker does not believe the current Georgian Public Broadcaster (GPB) Board can be trusted to effectively manage the television company as steps continue to establish a new Board of Trustees.

Amendments to the "Law on Broadcasting” is seeking to continue the establishment of a new GPB Board and enforce decisions made by the Constitutional Court, said Parliament Speaker David Usupashvili yesterday.

According to the changes, the GPB will become two-chambered. The current Board will remain within the broadcaster as a monitoring council and the new board, which will be approved by the Parliament in the near future, will have control over all other functions.

Usupashvili noted that the current Board of Trustees, which should have been replaced by the new Board according to Parliament's approval, managed to illegally dismiss their elected general director twice. 

The board was not dismissed because the Constitutional Court upheld its lawsuit against Parliament.

"We do not share but respect the decision of the Constitutional Court," Usupashvili said.

"So the amendment has been drawn up in a way that the GPB reformation process continues while on the other hand, the order of the Constitutional Court is executed,” he said.

The Parliament Speaker also said the illegal decisions made by the current GPB to dismiss the general director twice was confirmed by the Court, however the authorities restored his positions in both instances.

"Therefore it is natural that management of a television company, which is financed from the Budget and spends 35-40 million GEL of taxpayers money per year cannot be trusted to this kind of Board,” he added.

Usupashvili said the monitoring council would begin functioning from January 1, 2015 as an advisory body and its members will have a slightly reduced salary.

Parliament passed these legislative changes at its first hearing yesterday.