Burjanadze Wants Probe into EC-Funded S.Ossetia Aid Program

Parliamentary Chairperson Nino Burjanadze on May 10 instructed MP Shota Malashkhia, who chairs the Commission for Territorial Integrity, to study the distribution of funds allocated within frames of the EU-funded rehabilitation program for the South Ossetian conflict zone.

Burjanadze’s instructions came after Guram Vakhtangashvili,  a parliamentarian from South Ossetia’s Georgian-populated Didi Liakhvi constituency, said that the assistance allocated in frames of this rehabilitation program have not been “fairly distributed among the Georgian and Ossetian” populations in the conflict zone.

The last phase of the 2.5 million Euros EC Rehabilitation Program, which ended in March 2006 after 27 months, was managed by the OSCE and implemented by UNDP and UNHCR, according to the European Commission Delegation in Tbilisi.

The program mainly aimed at rehabilitating basic infrastructure in support of the resident communities in the conflict zone.