Paata Trapaidze, chief executive of construction firm Caucasus Road Project Ltd., will take over the newly introduced post of State Minister for Employment, incoming PM Vano Merabishvili said on July 2.
Caucasus Road Project Ltd. is a state contractor for many major construction projects, including the one involving building of an administrative office for new Parliament building in Kutaisi.
Other changes in the cabinet has yet to be announced, including the one who will replace Merabishvili on his previous post of Interior Minister.
“We will cooperate with everyone, with all the political parties – whether it is opposition or [government] party, whether parliamentary opposition or parties outside [the Parliament],” Paata Trapaidze, nominee for the State Minister for Employment, said. “I am open for [cooperation] if they have any proposals… I will spare no efforts to make available for each and every Georgian citizen, regardless of their ethnic, religious background or political views, what they think is necessary for them; but they [citizens] should also realize what they need and what the state needs. Everyone should be able to find their place in our society.”
“We will cooperate closely with the Education Ministry, with the Ministry of Agriculture, with the Ministry of Infrastructure [Development] and of course with the Ministry of Economy,” Trapaidze added.
Speaking at a presentation of new ministerial nominee, incoming PM Vano Merabishvili said that “fighting unemployment will be our government’s major challenge.”
The televised event in presence of senior officials from various ministries took place outside a new vocational center, which is currently under construction in Tbilisi suburb.
“Paata [Trapaidze] has never been involved in politics before,” Merabishvili said. “He has a huge experience in employing people… His [company] has built hundreds and probably thousands of kilometers of roads, many bridges and tunnels. Only in his enterprise Paata managed to employee 700 citizens.”
“I plan to fight against unemployment, like I fought for years against crime and corruption,” Merabishvili said. “Unfortunately we still do not possess full information about unemployment in Georgia, including information about people with what kind of professional background fail to find job; furthermore, we do not exactly now which are the most demanded professions and skills in Georgia.”
He said that one of the major tasks of the new State Ministry would be to tackle this issue.
“This ministry should lay ground for tailoring government’s resources, funds and initiatives to employment,” Merabishvili said. “In next few days [Trapaidze] will elaborate a concept, create date base involving all the unemployed [citizens] and available vacancies. He will help those people who seek a job and those seeking recruitment new employees.”
He also said that the government was planning to introduce a formal “status of unemployed and job seekers.”
Merabishvili also said that he would submit to the Parliament government’s new program on Monday evening.