Georgia: Mtavari TV Facing Pressure to Close
Photo: Screenshot
A popular independent TV company in Georgia, Mtavari, is facing pressure to close, Orda reports, citing Civil Georgia.
CEO Giorgi Gabunia says the company co-founder, businessman Zaza Okuashvili, is conspiring with the billionaire Bidzina Ivanishvili.
Ivanishvili is the founder and honorary chair of the ruling Georgian Dream Party.
Gabunia claims Okuashvili is using the company as a bargaining chip in his legal battle with the authorities.
Gabunia stated that Okuashvili is acting through his appointed director, Gogi Kurdadze.
At Okuashvili's instructions, he blocks the company's financial operations and terminates contracts, resulting in Mtvari remaining without funding.
Okuashvili responded by accusing Gabunia and another founder of Mtavari, Nika Gvaramia, of bringing the TV channel to bankruptcy, using it for personal enrichment, and turning television "into a machine for laundering millions of dollars internationally."
Zaza Okuashvili lives in the UK. For several years, he was battling authorities. In 2018, the revenue service announced a multimillion-dollar tax debt owed by his company, Omega Group Tobacco.
The court proceedings are ongoing.
Mtvari journalists believe that Kurdadze aims to create artificial problems for the country's most influential channel to benefit the ruling Georgian Dream party.
Latest news
- 2,500 Participants from 22 Countries: Almaty Opens the Running Season
- Snow and Frost: Weather Forecast for February 15
- Tokayev congratulates Serbia’s President Vucic on Statehood Day
- Mikhail Shaidorov Wins Kazakhstan’s First Winter Olympic Gold Since 1994
- Indian Crested Porcupines Spotted by Camera Trap in Ile-Alatau National Park
- Kazakhstan’s Air Pollution Isn’t Driven by Factories — Ministry of Ecology
- How the US Views Kazakhstan’s Constitutional Reform and Free Speech
- US Ambassador to Kazakhstan: Visa Restrictions for Kazakhstanis Are a Temporary Measure
- China-to-Russia Shipments Are Increasingly Bypassing Kazakhstan
- Shokan Ualikhanov Private School Reclassified as Large Business After Staff Tops 250
- Former Priest Yakov Vorontsov Reportedly Detained in Kazakhstan
- Kazakhstan Proposes Differentiated Toll Rates for Transit Foreign Drivers
- World Bank Ready to Provide Kazakhstan Up to $1 Billion a Year for Six Years
- Woman Forced to Move and Change Jobs Repeatedly as Ex-Husband Stalked Her
- Kazakhstanis Are Getting Married Less Often
- Why Online Voting Isn’t Coming for the 2026 Referendum
- Mephedrone lab network uncovered in Almaty’s private houses
- Kazakhstan’s Domestic Trade Slows in January
- A Man Spent Six Months in Jail for Nothing — Court Awards Millions from the State
- Over 100M Tenge in Budget Money Allegedly Spent on Gambling in West Kazakhstan
