1 I don’t see what’s strange about Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski telling State Public Prosecutor Nenad Saveski which cases he expects him to open. The only new thing is that, this time, he did it in a historic manner, as he would put it – robustly, from the parliamentary rostrum, on live television. Until now, prime ministers have assigned tasks to prosecutors and judges behind closed doors, through government secretaries ticking off names in party notebooks.
Naturally, he proposes the prosecutor, his MPs vote him in. The government appoints him, and the government tells him how to do his job.
Just ten days ago, Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Nikoloski was praising Saveski in Parliament as a candidate for the post of State Public Prosecutor, and now, Mickoski has kindly explained to him what he should be doing within his job description, so as to keep him satisfied. He even said he wouldn’t rest until Saveski met his expectations regarding which cases to open.
The moment the state prosecutor steps out of line with VMRO-DPMNE and the government, he’ll quickly learn what it means to be supported by VMRO-DPMNE. They’ll brand him an SDS-DUI man, hold press conferences against him, complain in TV interviews, withhold funds for salaries, refuse to approve new hires… We’ve seen that before.
So we’ll see how much praise the new state prosecutor truly deserves. Will he handle cases according to the order and importance, or according to the Prime Minister’s list.
2 The Angel of Kurbinovo, the fresco depicted on the fifty-denar note, located in one of the country’s most significant cultural and historical monuments, the Church of St.George in Prespa, built in 1191, still can’t be seen, even though the restoration of the interior was completed two years ago. The problem is that the restoration of the façade can’t be finished because one of the eaves that needs to be built to protect the exterior frescoes encroaches on private property.
If the situation were reversed, if the state had to sell state land to a private individual to complete a plot for one euro per square metre, the entire government would have gathered for the ceremonial opening of a shopping centre or hotel.
This church, regarded as marking the beginning of the Renaissance in this region, even before the European Renaissance, is one of the most significant monuments of Macedonian cultural and historical heritage. Conservators from Greece assisted with the restoration. That’s why I find it hard to believe that the government, which, by the way, has been beating its chest as the sole defender of centuries-old Macedonian identity, has been unable to resolve a minor property dispute in a village in Prespa for two years.
Does the government even intend to fully protect the church-monument and finally open it to the public?
Whenever state interests are at stake, the state comes up with countless excuses why something can’t be done, rather than what can be done to make it happen. When it comes to protecting cultural heritage of invaluable national importance state institutions have been nit-picking over full stops and commas for over two years. Meanwhile, we have thousands of illegal buildings on usurped state land for which no one has ever been punished. Concrete eyesores, along with their beaches, have encroached upon the lake protected by UNESCO, yet the authorities can’t resolve the boundary of a church wall. The problem is an eave on private property that no one has claimed for over a 100 years.
The VMRO-DPMNE government can’t secure protection for cultural heritage dating back to the 12th century. And yet the same party, when it was in power, had no trouble removing protection from dozens of buildings in the centre of Skopje in order to plaster them with Styrofoam Baroque as part of “Skopje 2014”.
3 Doing things out of spite is becoming the norm. Skopje Mayor Orce Gjorgjievski has announced that he’ll implement the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project that the VMRO-DPMNE local government had previously blocked for four years. The tender announced in 2021 was canceled by Mayor Danela Arsovska, who, together with Mickoski, had promised to purchase 250 buses and free public transportation. VMRO-DPMNE said that the BRT system was expensive and inefficient.
Well, now it will be even more expensive. Prices in 2021 aren’t the same as in 2026. Workers’ salaries have also risen. We rank third in terms of GDP growth. And on top of that, we’ve been paying 350,000 euros in annual interest to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Will those who blocked the project for four years, and now praise it as a historic success, reach into their own pockets for the million and a half euros?
I’d be happy to be proven wrong, but I can’t help feeling that Skopje’s BRT will turn into another Kichevo-Ohrid motorway. Considering the fact that during the renovation of a building in which the State Inspectorate for Environment caught fire, 51 contract annexes were signed in just two years, raising the cost by an additional two million euros, who knows how many annexes, and how much money, the rapid bus transport will ultimately require.
Since money is at stake, perhaps the best assessment of the damage would come from the Governor of the National Bank, Trajko Slaveski, who, as President of the Skopje City Council, blocked the project several times. But if we ask him, he might snap: Ask your editor. Well, what can you do in that case? Let’s ask Trajko Slaveski’s editor.
Forget the money. It’s earned and spent. But what do we do about time? This story about Skopje’s BRT is yet another clear illustration of how the parties are wasting our lives, and, truth be told, our health.
A ruined city, where half the country lives, without proper public transport… If this project isn’t completed in historically record time, it will mean many more years in dust, traffic jams, and pollution, both in winter and in summer.
Oh, if only it had been just the last four years. They’ve taken thirty-five years from us. Some out of incompetence, some out of dishonesty, some out of sheer stubbornness, some out of spite, some for nothing at all…
And in essence – who should take the money.
4 People in SDSM may not be good at working, but it must be said, they do know how to choose their personnel.
Is it possible no one wants to deal with them anymore, so they’ve turned to Andrej Zhernovski as their link to the world, appointing him international secretary of the party? Why would they bother staying in touch with reality when they can stay in touch with each other?
When they were in power, they did the damage and brought VMRO-DPMNE back. To be frank, they’re not exactly a source of joy in opposition either.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
