Georgian Railway denies claims of $80mln compensation to Russian contractor

Georgian Railway on Wednesday said an article published on Tuesday by Liberty Institute, which claimed a compensation of $80 million had been made from the country’s state budget to a Russian contractor company, was “absurd and unfounded”.

The railway company explained a domestic company had initially offered to supply mainline electric locomotives to Georgian Railways through the Russian company Uralskie Lokomotivy.

It added the contract with the holding company Sinara, which includes UL, had been terminated by GR after it was discovered the former had been placed on a special blocked list of the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the United States Department of the Treasury in response to Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

The Georgian company said there had been “no settlement” with the contractor in question and that it “no longer has any legal relationship” with the latter. It added its electronic procurement procedures were “public, transparent, and fully compliant with the legislation in force in Georgia”.

Georgian Railways called on the media to “refrain from spreading unverified and false information” and urged them for “more responsible journalism“.