Whilst commenting on the arrest of a Tbilservice Group employee on bribery charges, Tbilisi Mayor Kakha Kaladze stated that combating corruption is a priority and that every offence will be met with an appropriate response.

According to him, preventive measures are crucial in this fight.

“You know our position, fighting corruption is a priority direction, and accordingly, implementing preventive measures is very important. No one will be pardoned for crimes or unlawful actions. Every crime will be met with an appropriate response,” Kakha Kaladze stated.

Regarding a specific media outlet’s question about whether investigative agencies have any queries for the Tbilisi Mayor himself or his immediate circle, Kakha Kaladze responded that certain media outlets have been conducting a targeted defamatory campaign against him for years, without any evidence whatsoever.

“Throughout all these years, you’ve been deliberately insulting me, you’ve crossed every red line. You could have presented at least one fact suggesting that either I or any of my colleagues have been implicated in a crime. During this time, you’ve been fed information against me so you could spread nonsense. Then you would come rushing to me, claiming that my team members had supposedly supplied you with information to create stories against me on some fabricated topics. You were doing this to sow discord within the team. I’ll also say that we have more sense than that, and we make decisions that are important for the future,” Kakha Kaladze noted.

For context, officers from the Investigation Service of Georgia’s Ministry of Finance arrested the Chief Specialist of the Municipal Regional Monitoring Service at the Internal Control Department of Tbilservis Group LLC on bribery charges following investigative operations.