Georgia’s earthquake monitoring centre ‘could close’ in 3 months after losing US funding

The Georgian Institute of Earth Sciences and National Seismic Monitoring Centre at Ilia State University could cease functioning in just three months, after US aid to the organisation was suspended.

In a statement on Monday, the institute said that as Ilia State University is a state institution, new restrictions ‘imposed by the US government due to recent developments in Georgia’ had affected them.

Since the Georgian Government adopted the foreign agent law in May, both the US and EU have cut several aid programmes to the country, while the EU has said Georgia’s membership bid is on hold.

The head of the institute, Tea Godoladze, told RFE/RL on Monday that if the centre did not find new sources of funding, it would only be able to continue to function for another three months. She said that while their equipment would last until next summer, it was uncertain if they would have the necessary funds to maintain it thereafter, and that they faced the prospect of losing the necessary staff to operate.

In their statement on Monday, the institute said they had received ‘very little’ funding from the Georgian Government, which they said was ‘decreasing every year’. 

According to the institute, US funds were mainly used to maintain monitoring systems in the country. The centre said they had also been working on an updated version of the US-sponsored seismic hazard map. 

In a post on Facebook on Monday, Godoladze wrote that the suspension of funding for the centre was not a surprise.

‘After the Lugar laboratory, we expected it to be inevitable’.

In August, Georgian authorities confirmed that the US’s suspension of financial aid to Georgia had affected the Richard Lugar Public Health Research Centre — an infectious disease research centre run by the National Centre for Disease Control and Public Health (NCDC). 

However, Health Minister Mikheil Sarjveladze told media that the US aid cuts only covered around ₾2 million ($740,000) of the Lugar Centre’s budget, and would only affect certain research projects and training programmes.

[Read more: US aid suspension hits Georgian Constitutional Court and Lugar Lab]

In July, the US suspended more than $95 million in aid to the Georgian government, citing its ‘anti-democratic actions’ and ‘false statements’ about the West and Washington.

This was connected to the adoption of the controversial foreign agent law on 28 May, which occurred against the backdrop of large public protests and calls from international partners to drop it.

The US also applied travel bans to ‘dozens’ of Georgian nationals for their role in the suppression of protests against the foreign agent law and in undermining democracy in Georgia. They also ‘indefinitely’ postponed annual joint military drills with Georgia.