1 After Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski told us that he had phoned State Public Prosecutor Nenad Saveski to ask about the suspension of the year-long investigation into alleged illegal procurement of fuel oil for TPP Negotino, Saveski said  he couldn’t prevent anyone from calling him. He said that it was the first time he had spoken to Mickoski and that they hadn’t discussed details of any specific case.

So what exactly did they discuss?

President Gordana Siljanovska-Davkova says that she can’t judge whether it was ethical for the prime minister to call the prosecutor. She says: maybe they’re friends and simply had a friendly chat “hey, how are you, how is it going?”

She says she doesn’t know the public prosecutor and has never met him. Although last month they sat at the same table during the Easter lunch hosted by Mickoski.

Who knows, maybe Mickoski and Saveski really are BFFs. Perhaps the prime minister calls him the same way we call our friends for no particular reason at all. Just chatting casually: What’s up? What are you having for lunch today?

Then again, that story about the prime minister and the State Public Prosecutor being friends doesn’t hold water either. Because when Saveski was running for the post, Mickoski said he didn’t know him, and the MPs from VMRO-DPMNE elected him purely on the basis of his biography.

We’re not that naive to expect a prime minister not to call the State Prosecutor. Surely previous prime ministers called prosecutors too. That’s why we are where we are. However, unlike the others, Mickoski also wants to boast publicly about phoning Saveski.

Somehow, in a democratic society, that’s not how things are supposed to work. We don’t really know if there was any wrongdoing in the procurement of fuel oil and whether the prosecution is trying to cover it up. But surely there’s a proper way to determine that. After all, there must be a proper way of pressuring the prosecution and the judiciary, a slightly more elegant way. Not this blatantly, with the ruling VMRO-DPMNE beating a drum about it. As if to say, there’s nothing to hide, it’s common practice for the prime minister to phone the prosecutor, the same way he phones his ministers. Just to make it clear who calls the shots.

Why are we even shocked that the prime minister phones the State Public Prosecutor? Immediately after Saveski was elected, Mickoski stood at the parliamentary rostrum and stated which cases he expected him to open. The case involving the procurement of fuel oil for TPP Negotino wasn’t part of the original order. Looks like he forgot about it back then and had to intervene afterwards: Hello Nenad, I’ve got an idea…

2 Mickoski says that we’ll take the more difficult road towards the EU.

As if the road had been easy until now. The truly tragic part is that we haven’t even set off on the road.

We’re still packing. And we’re getting more and more stuck in the preparations for the journey.

3 An independent international commission has concluded that 9 patients underwent unnecessary operations in public healthcare institutions, apparently in order to collect money from the budget for cardiological and cardiac surgery procedures. That announcement came from the Minister of Health, Azir Aliu.

About ten days ago, the Minister of Education, Vesna Janevska, told postgraduate students at the Faculty of Philosophy that they should have checked where they were enrolling before signing up for second and third cycle studies.

Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Nikolovski has repeatedly warned citizens buying flats to be careful whom they buy from and to check whether they have a property certificate.

Isn’t it a little depressing when a deputy prime minister warns you that you could end up without both your flat and your money? And when the Minister of Education tells you to be careful where you enrol so you don’t end up without a diploma? And when the Minister of Health tells you to be careful which hospital you choose for an operation, because perhaps you don’t need the operation at all?

Before they put you to sleep for an operation, ask the surgeon to show you the calibration certificate for the instruments. And then give him a quick anatomy quiz, just to make sure they don’t remove an organ you never needed removed.

Everything has to be checked.

Citizens should apparently check the buses they ride in themselves. Check whether they’re roadworthy and who approved their registration. Before going to a party, people should personally check whether the nightclub has a licence to operate as a nightclub. Otherwise they shouldn’t blame the state if they die in a fire. Brides and grooms should check whether the restaurant where they booked their wedding is registered as a hospitality venue. Tourists should ask the boatmen at Matka Canyon whether they’ve passed the boat driving test. They may as well ask where their boats are registered too.

Who’s to blame but us for not checking things thoroughly enough ourselves?

But then again, if we all start conducting private investigations into where to study, which transport to use, whether to undergo surgery, which night club to enter, then what about ministers, mayors, directors of public enterprises for?

Ah yes, they’re there for good governance. We keep them around much like that deputy prime minister for good governance who hasn’t shown up to work since March.

And does he still get paid?

Well, we haven’t checked.

4 Citizens should have checked for themselves whether the cable car on Mount Vodno was safe to ride. Only now are we finding out that, since it was launched in 2011, it hadn’t been serviced for 15 years. We’ve clearly been terribly negligent citizens, fifteen years and nobody thought to inspect the cable car.

If it managed without servicing for that long, then it must be very high-quality.

40 years ago, when I was young and insufficiently educated in European matters, I remember how we used to mock the Hungarian Ikarus buses when comparing them to our Sanos buses produced in the “11 October” factory in Skopje. Now we’re celebrating the fact that we’ll buy 150 buses from Ikarus. We once had the largest bus factory in south-eastern Europe. The factory even received orders for Mercedes and MAN buses. Macedonian Sanos buses drove across the whole of Yugoslavia.

And there you have it, we dismantled our own factory only to buy Chinese double-decker buses for commissions, which today can be sold only by the kilo as scrap metal.

Still, at least the Government used the money from TAV wisely, money which, according to the concession agreement, was originally intended for building an airport in Shtip. And now, thanks to that, the operating theatres built back in Tito’s time at the former Military Hospital in Skopje have finally been renovated. The slight problem is that the director of the City General Hospital “8 September” says that there isn’t enough staff to work in the renovated theatres. But, on the other hand, it’s comforting to hear Prime Minister Mickoski say that there is no hospital like it anywhere from here all the way north to Vienna.

Meanwhile, back home, doctors, nurses, engineers, and highly skilled workers who once built our buses have already gone far beyond Vienna, together with their children…

Ancient civilisations maintained irrigation systems thousands of years ago, while in our Macedonia, in the third decade of the 21st century, every slightly heavier rainfall sparks debates about drainage canals. Not about building new ones, but about maintaining the existing ones.

We built a cable car 15 years ago and, by the grace of God, it’s still standing despite never having been serviced.

Those are the civilisational achievements of 35 years of an independent Macedonian state.

 

Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski