On 5 February, the Facebook page Sakartvelostvis [“For Georgia”] posted a screenshot of a procurement contract of the preschool education agency at Gori municipality. The screenshot shows the price of the purchase set at GEL 38 900 and a line reading: “Perfumes, Hygiene Products and Condoms” marked with a red paint. A message accompanying the screenshot which contained a question to other Facebook users: “Do you see the word condoms too?”, created an impression that the preschool education agency purchased unnecessary items.
The screenshot posted by the Facebook page and the accompanying message are manipulative: “Perfumes, Hygiene Products and Condoms” is the description of a classification code available in the database of the Revenue Service, which was used by the agency to specify air fresheners purchased through tender.
When uploading a contract on the website of the State Procurement Agency, a customer has to fill in various fields, including the procurement category and a relevant classification code from the common procurement vocabulary (CPV). Classification codes are used to specify goods. The annex to the contract uploaded by the preschool education agency at Gori municipality shows that air fresheners were specified by code 3371000 and therefore, they fell under the category named “Perfumes, Hygiene Products and Condoms.” Hence, specifying the procurement under this category does not necessarily mean that the preschool education agency at Gori municipality purchased condoms.
Moreover, the preschool education agency at Gori municipality did not spend GEL 38 990 on the purchase of hygiene products as seen from the screenshot.
According to the amendment to the contract, the preschool education agency at Gori municipality paid the amount in two installments in February 2020: GEL 4 569.35 on 3 February and GEL 374.15 on 26 February, which makes up GEL 7 943.
About the source:
Facebook page “Sakartvelostvis” was created on 26 October 2017 and it mainly publishes and shares post that criticize the ruling party.
