Opposition Protests ‘Covert’ Deal to Sell Georgian Shipping Co.

At a parliamentary session on December 21 leaders of the opposition Republican Party and the Rightist Opposition coalition condemned the Georgian government’s “covert deal” with the Greenoak Group over selling 100% of the shares of the Georgian Ocean Shipping Company.

The Georgian government signed its largest-ever privatization deal with the Greenoak Group, a major investor company in Georgia, on December 17, selling the Georgian Ocean Shipping Company for USD 107 million. The agreement is preliminary, but the transaction will most likely be closed early in the New Year.

News about the deal broke only after the Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania and Jan Bonde Nielsen, who is the major shareholder and chairman of the Greenoak Group, signed an agreement on December 17.

“Experts say that the Shipping Company costs much more [than USD 107 million]. Aslan Abashidze [ex-leader of Adjara Autonomous Republic], who had a close ties with [Chairman of the Greenoak Group Jan Bonde] Nielsen, started selling of the Georgian fleet. So I do not rule out that there might be direct, or maybe indirect, interests of Aslan Abashidze in this deal signed by Georgia’s current government,” MP Davit Berdzenishvili, the leader of the opposition Republican Party, said at the parliamentary session on December 21.

“The process [of privatization] should be transparent and the MPs should have all information about this, especially against the background of the fact that the Shipping Company has turned into one of the most profitable enterprises in recent years. I am sure that the Prime Minister could not have taken this decision regarding this highly suspicious deal independently, without prior approval from the President [Mikheil Saakashvili],” MP Davit Gamkrelidze, leader of the Rightist Opposition coalition, added at the parliamentary session.

However, Georgian Finance Minister Zurab Nogaideli, who attended the session on December 21, dismissed the accusations as “groundless.”

“The process [of privatization] is transparent. Moreover, the process is not accomplished yet. The deadline for receiving proposals from different companies over purchasing the Shipping Company is December 27. And if some other firm offers us better conditions, we will sell the Shipping Company to that particular firm,” the Finance Minister told parliamentarians.

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