Anaklia Port Project Again in Uncertain Waters
On Wednesday, July 24, Anaklia Development Consortium (ADC) announced that French company Effiage had been awarded the contract to build the Anaklia Deep Sea Port. As the general contractor, Effiage will work in partnership with Swiss company ABB and Georgian company CRP. Among Europe’s top five construction companies by volume, Effiage has completed more than 100,000 projects internationally since its founding in 1844. The company’s work includes ports, highways, and power grids, notably the Port of Barcelona, the Port of Dakar, EuroAirport Basel-Mulhouse-Freiburg, and Crete Airport.
The world's leading construction and engineering companies participated in the multi-stage international tender to select the Anaklia Port’s general contractor. 1,500 workers will be hired during the first phase of construction, of which 90% will be locals.
The plan for a deep-sea port in Anaklia, located about 140 kilometers north of Batumi by car, just south of the border with occupied Abkhazia, has been discussed since Soviet times. The Georgian government awarded the Anaklia Development Consortium, a joint venture of TBC Holding and Conti International, a contract to develop the Anaklia Deep-Sea Port in 2016. It is estimated that the project will cost $2.5 billion.
In early June, Levan Akhvlediani, the CEO of the Anaklia Development Consortium, said he believed that “there are forces in the country as well as outside it, who are willing to take deliberate steps to hinder the Anaklia port project,” but, at that time, he rejected the idea of a government-wide conspiracy against his company.
This week, however, a new obstacle arose. One of the primary shareholders of ADC and the owner of TBC Holding, high-profile businessman Mamuka Khazaradze, was formally charged with money laundering. Along with his TBC co-founder Badri Japaridze, Khazaradze is accused by the Georgian Prosecutor’s Office of laundering $16.7 mln in 2007-2008.
Responding to the allegations against him last month, Khazaradze fought back, calling them unsubstantiated and meant only to tarnish his reputation – evidenced by the fact that, at the time, no charges had been brought against him or anyone else allegedly involved in criminal conduct. He took to social media to speak out against what he claimed were more unfair practices against his company. On Facebook on May 29, Khazaradze wrote “The Anaklia Project is on the verge of being terminated!!!”
While Prime Minister Mamuka Bakhtadze was visiting Washington D.C. mid-June, he met with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who later told reporters, “I communicated our hope that Georgia completes the port project. The project and others will enhance Georgia’s relationship with free economies and prevent Georgia from falling prey to Russian or Chinese economic influence. Those pretend friends do not have Georgia’s best interests at heart.” The statement eased many concerns over whether the port project might be abandoned due to political and financial pressure on ADC and Khazaradze personally.
Entering the Prosecutor General’s Office on Wednesday, where the charge was officially read to the two defendants, Khazaradze told gathered press, “everything is directed against the Anaklia Port Project and the government is trying to suspend the construction of the Port..I can say that all these are efforts of the government to stop the construction of Anaklia Deep-Sea Port. The same attack took place in January. It caused very serious damage to the bank's shareholders as well as the Anaklia Port Project.”
He continued, angrily, saying "Yesterday, we selected the new general constructor company of Anaklia Port, which suspiciously coincided with one of the minister's statements that there is no progress. Today, we heard the Prosecutor’s statement on TV aimed at harming the Anaklia Port. If someone thinks that Anaklia is my project they are very wrong. This is a project for our children, a project for our future generation, this is an absolutely new way, and a very important step toward Europe.”
When asked to comment on the situation, Minister of Economy and Sustainable Development Natia Turnava said that the Anaklia Deep Sea Port will not be hindered by the charges against Khazaradze, and that the public should wait for the courts’ decision on the matter. “As we have repeatedly stated, the Anaklia project is a very high-level priority for our country. We definitely need a deep-water port in Anaklia, which has unprecedented support from the state. Therefore, nothing threatens this project,” said Turnava.
By Samantha Guthrie