Public TV Head Resigns

Giorgi Baratashvili, director general of the Georgian Public Broadcaster (GPB), filed his resignation two years before the expiration of his term in office.

Baratashvili, whose term in office would have expired in December 2018, said that his decision had nothing to do with politics and added that it was his personal decision.

“I have already done my job and I think that GPB needs new blood,” he told reporters on November 21.

GPB’s Board of Trustees will announce a competition within 10 days to select new head. 

The board accepted Baratashvili’s resignation and appointed Tinatin Berdzenishvili, GPB’s media and communications director, as an acting director.  

Giorgi Baratashvili became GPB’s director general for a six-year term in December 2012. Since then the board sacked him twice in March 2013 and then in August 2013, but in the both cases Baratashvili took his firing to the court and won his post back.   

GPB is funded from the state budget – this year its funding is set at GEL 44.1 million and next year it will increase to GEL 47.5 million, according to the initial draft of 2017 state budget.