PMCG Hosted Newly Elected Mayors and Gamgebelis

On Monday, July 28th, the Policy and Management Consulting Group (PMCG) hosted an information meeting for newly elected Mayors and Gamgebelis.

USAID Georgia mission Director Stephen Haykin, as well as newly elected Tbilisi Mayor David Narmania, First Deputy Minister of Regional Development and Infrastructure Tengiz Shergelashvili and PMCG’s Chief Executive Officer Aleksi Aleksishvili, opened the event.

Eight newly elected Mayors (including: Kutaisi, Batumi, Zugdidi, and Rustavi) and 13 Gamgebelis participated in the meeting.

The Mayors and Gamgebelis discussed opportunities to raise the productivity of their work and important aspects of the recently adopted Local Self-Governance Code.

“Local Self-Governance Code gives us new authorities and responsibilities towards our citizens. Therefore, it is important that the newly elected Mayors and Gamgebelis know exactly what new legislation imposes, in order to lead activities more effectively. I appreciate USAID Georgi’s support in this direction. This organization assists us during this reform and I believe that this support will continue in the future also, as the reform has just began and will take several years before the full implementation”, said elected Mayor of Tbilisi, David Narmania.

“The purpose of the meeting is to analyze major principles, directions, opportunities and challenges of the self-governance with the newly elected Mayors and Gamgebelis. I would like to thank USAID Georgia and the participants for supporting this project,” said Aleksi Aleksishvili, CEO at PMCG adding that “PMCG would like to have even a small contribution to the development of the decentralization and democracy process in Georgia”.

The meeting was conducted as part of the project Training Courses for Senior Civil Servants in 14 Newly-Created Municipalities, supported by the USAID Good Governance Georgia (G3) program.