1 Haven’t we learned anything from life? For example, what have we learned from the heavy downpour in Shipkovica back in August 2015 when six people lost their lives? Have the channels been cleaned? Have we reforested the areas which were illegally cut? Has the waste been collected? Or, what have we learned from the lesson of Stajkovci in August 2016 which claimed 22 lives? In August 2019, there was a great fire near the Lake Mladost in Veles. Prime Minister Zoran Zaev promised that the number of firefighters in the local fire brigades would be increased, and new pilots for the Air Tractors firefighting aircraft would be trained. Neither have the planes flown, nor has the number of firefighters been increased.
And how come Stojance Angelov, the Director of the Crisis Management Center, is to blame for the lack of firefighters, the fact that there aren’t enough pilots, that the planes aren’t serviced and that the ARM helicopters can’t fly in high temperatures? Stojance is guilty only because he’s making statements, therefore drawing attention on himself, while we forget about the responsibility of the ones who are truly responsible. How can he manage a crisis, when he hasn’t got what and who to manage?
It’s the same story all over again as it was with the lack of passports and license plates, the procurement of the certificates, the delayed delivery of insulin, the birth certificates… the only difference here is that it’s much more dramatic and with a lot more casualties. Planning – nonexistent. We’re not even using the very few resources we have.
And yet we brag: We are NATO. What bloody NATO are we talking about, when we can’t even service the three firefighting aircrafts we have? Why don’t we give them to Vucic as a gift and let him service them and send them back to us when we need them.
Our NATO partners are helping us. Just imagine if a natural disaster befell them, and they had to wait for aid from us? How would we help them? With the firefighters we don’t have in sufficient numbers? With the fire trucks from Tito’s era? With the Air Tractors that can’t take off and with no one to fly them? Or perhaps with our politicians, who shall parade around as they did in Kocani before they went on holiday. Because, when all else fails, all that’s left to do is to have your photo taken. Just say – the fires have been set by arsonists – and you’ve solved the problem. We’ll only deal with whatever brings us popularity at the moment. It’s a day to day affair. And worry only about how that will look like on Facebook.
2 Seriously, how come you get yourself in a position where you don’t have a flying firefighting aircraft in July and August? What kind of a manager are you? Surely it’s not because all those directors are hired there only to get a company car and a secretary. They should at least get something done, even if they are from DUI, like Bekim Maksuti, the Director of the Protection and Rescue Directorate.
The aircrafts couldn’t be serviced because it was too expensive, and the public procurement procedure is too complicated and he didn’t want to break the law. Well, change the law then. You are the director. You make a plan, you phone the Prime Minister, you nag the MPs about it, you make an uproar in the media: “People, we’ll all burn, let’s look for a solution!”
The same goes for the other directors. The same goes for the mayors too. You’re the Mayor and you need firefighters and new vehicles. Well, plan them in your budget, get rid of some other items, ask for money from the government, negotiate – we’ll add some more money here, cut some costs there… Point out to the Government what the obstacles in the procedures are. In a nutshell, do your job.
And then let the Government avoid changing the law, let the Assembly not convene to adopt it, let the opposition block the law with amendments out of spite and let them say “Here goes that boring guy again,” but at least you’ll know that you’re carrying out the work you’re paid for.
The thing with us is that all the directors of the state and public institutions function according to the “Yes, Boss” principle.
If we phone the mayor to ask him why something isn’t working, he’ll reply with: “Please don’t bring up that subject now, I’m waiting for them to let me run for office again, Zaev will get mad at me.” If we phone the State Hospital Director to ask him how come a medical device isn’t working, or why there is a shortage of some medicine, he’ll complain and say: “Not now please, you’ll get me into a fight with Filipce.” If we phone anyone to ask them why something that the citizens need isn’t procured, and instead the only thing that’s procured is something the institution needs, they’ll reply: “Let’s not go into this, the last thing I need is to quarrel with Ljupco Nikolovski.” And if you bring up this subject in public after all, you’ll be labeled with “Good Lord, you’ve become one of those VMRO blokes.”
And so, according to the “Yes, Boss” principle, mayors say “Everything’s fine at our end.” The directors say “Everything’s fine at our end.” The Government is enjoying its success because, well, “everything’s fine,” of course. And if there’s any need to change something for the better of us all, the MPs in the Assembly will convene for their own good only – to amend the Electoral Code to crush down the competition.
3 And so we live in a vicious party circle of obedient or incompetent staff, and quite often a combination of both – obedient and incompetent.
The Director of the State Environmental Inspectorate, Ana Petrovska, wasn’t dismissed because she wasn’t doing her job. On the contrary. She was doing her job, way more than she had initially planned. She has been dismissed because she got into a fight with the DOM Party leader, Maja Moracanin.
Prior to that, the Government has dismissed the director of the Market Inspectorate Stojko Paunovski – not because he wasn’t doing his job. On the contrary, he was doing it quite well. He was dismissed because he said “No, Boss” to Zaev because he didn’t want to employ more of the “Interim Agreement people” when he didn’t need them.
It was exactly with these two dismissals when SDSM and the other seemingly democratic parties in power showed their true colors. The citizens are happy with the directors of the two inspectorates, but the party isn’t. Although, they aren’t made directors to serve the party, but to serve the citizens.
It’s a whole different topic as to why the inspectors have to be tied to a party? Why directors, any directors, no matter if they are directors of schools, kindergartens, the Cadastre, the State Statistical Office, tourism directorates, Emergency departments, hospitals are being dismissed if they do their job well? Politics is run within the ministries, not within the professional institutions. Why is it that they can’t tame the party staff? Some of them don’t even exercise the party’s ideology, although they pay membership fees and post photos on Facebook about it.
This is so shameless. They don’t even hide anymore. What kind of message are they sending when they officially state that the director has been dismissed because her spot belongs to a party which is used to make bargains with and fill the quorum in the Assembly? The message is that our lives literally depend on some flatterers whose management style comes down to “Yes, Boss,” “Don’t get me into a fight with the Boss” and “Let me drive my company car for another term.”
We didn’t bring down VMRO-DPMNE simply because they were VMRO. We brought them down because we disliked their ruling practices and wanted to change the system where the party was above all.
4 At the beginning of the summer, when we wrote that the Air Tractors hadn’t been serviced, even my colleagues at work said to me: “Come on Goran, you’re the only one who cares about this.” And they were right. Not many people read the text. Why would there be a fuss about it when nothing was in flames?
The same thing happens when we write a hundred times over that with all of this urban chaos we’ll burn one day, because even now some parts of Skopje aren’t accessible by the fire engines and the ambulances. No one is bothered, including those who buy apartments in those neighborhoods. When I told a certain mayor, in a casual chat, that “God forbid, if there was an earthquake and if a building crashed down, the rescue teams wouldn’t be able to reach the site,” he said: “My God, don’t be such a fatalist, you have to die of something.”
At the end, we can conclude – God forbid you need the State. But, as fate would have it, even God is not merciful sometimes.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
