1 We’ve all known the story of Nasreddin Hodja ever since we were little. The one where people would line up in front of him and ask him for money. And he’d say to them: Of course, feel free to take some from the pot, but please give some money back when you have enough”. One day, they came up to him and said: But Hodja, there’s no more money left in the pot. And he responded: Of course there isn’t, you haven’t filled it.
2 Now, even the professors from the St. Cyril and Methodius University are threatening that unless the state increases their salaries, they would skip the June exam session. They will screw over the students who need to sit the exams.
What can we, the private-sector employees, use to blackmail the government if our salaries are not increased?
If only the professors were made to attend a lecture on the basics of economics at some of the faculties of economics. In order for the state to have money, someone needs to create and earn something. It’s not like the state grows the money on trees and we can just pick it. Even if that were the case, someone would need to climb the tree and pick the money. They’d need to do some work to fill the pot.
Living expenses have gone up for all of us. And it would be terrific if everyone could earn more money. But – they need to show some results. Something measurable. For example, let the university professors have their raise, but have them obliged that the following year, our university won’t be ranked last place in the region. Have it ranked second-to-last. And the year after, instead of 800 Macedonian students going away to Slovenian state universities, have them be 700.
Finally, if the professors were good enough and if they created good workforce, their students would now be creating successful companies, they would be innovative, they would be manufacturing competitive products, they would be selling both goods and ideas to foreign countries… That way, we wouldn’t have a problem over who’s responsible for filling the pot.
3 Salaries are to be raised for the prosecutors and the judges too, although they have 8% trust from the public. Let them too show some results, so that they, now financially enhanced, shall raise the trust in them to 10%.
The same goes for the Registry Office clerks who have been protesting for a whole month now. They have the right to demand higher salaries, but have them at least commit that next year they won’t make 20,000 mistakes in the personal data documents. Let them say – give us a 25% raise, and we’ll deliver only 15.000 faulty documents.
Dimitar Kovachevski’s Government is bragging that the average salary has been increased by the administrative raise of the minimum wage. Nasreddin Hodja used to say “Of course, feel free”, so he opened Pandora’s Box and now it seems he won’t be able to deal with it. He’ll take out a loan in order to give salaries to the state administration. Money which the private sector doesn’t earn. He’ll take out a loan this year. What about the next one? Some magic will miraculously happen? Or perhaps the state administration, motivated by the raised salaries, shall create conditions so that the private sector can earn more?
In the private sector, each day you fight with the competition, you educate yourself even further, you progress through the ranks, you get awarded if you do more, you get punished if you make a mistake… Whereas in the state administration you don’t have to do anything. The only thing you need to do is get employed for the first time. And then you’ll hopefully supplement your salary with bribes. Even if they catch you red-handed, you won’t get fired. Because your employment doesn’t depend on the fact whether you’re doing a good job or not. Much in the same way as the time when you got employed in the first place, when it wasn’t important whether you were a good candidate, but rather whose party list you were on.
In a normal country, a normal government creates conditions in which public servants want to transfer to the private sector to earn more. A normal country doesn’t make state jobs even more appealing. Because having a state job means you’re not afraid you’d lose your job.
In this country, people who live on salaries provided by someone else are on strike. And those who actually earn their salaries are not on strike.
4 If the Assembly were a private company, and Talat Xhaferi its manager, surely he wouldn’t need to scold the administrators for going on a walk on Macedonia Street during working hours, or to lock the doors so the MPs of VMRO wouldn’t be able to enter and exit the hall whenever they wanted. By now, either their salaries would have been reduced or they would have been fired. I wonder if some director would have allowed them to outsmart the system by entering and exiting, and if he would be ok with being the “bad guy” in the process because he figured out their chaos-making schemes. Or, if his employees would have threatened him: “Why are you shouting at me just because I wasn’t at work during working hours?”
“I am shouting at you!? Watch me as I fire you without shouting!”
Talat has made a mess – no doubt. Moreover, he refused to apologize. But why do we bother with this masquerade, moralizing whether his language was adequate enough while others were wreaking havoc? The substantial debate will come down to what words the Speaker of the Parliament used to deal with the blockade of the Assembly, and we’ll forget that the opposition MPs have been obstructing the work of the Assembly all this time. Including the interpellation debate, although they know that they don’t have enough votes to change the Speaker. They’re wasting our days for nothing, instead of doing some actual work. Loads of laws which directly influence our lives shall remain blocked. The Assembly will be non-functional, as it has been until now.
But the laws are not a priority. The citizens – even less so. The priority is the leader of the opposition party, who is not an MP, but has made up his mind there should be early elections. And MPs whose priority is not the wellbeing of the taxpayers who pay them to pass new laws and fix the existing ones, but rather the wellbeing that the party provides only to their own members.
There’s a war in Europe, there’s an economic crisis, there’s a health crisis… But what is that in comparison to the greatness of a leading candidate?
5 Approximately 3,000 kids in all of Skopje’s municipalities are on the waiting list for admission to a state kindergarten.
These are the consequences of 30 years of urban rampage. These are the consequences of the decisions made by the local authorities, no matter which political parties they are coming from, according to which only the interests of the so called “investors” are being considered, and not the interests of the people who elected that government. No schools, no kindergartens, no hospitals, no nursing homes, no parks… You grant a permission for thousands of apartments, and you don’t consider that there be people living in those apartments, that people have kids, they go to work, they go to the doctor, they go to school, they drive cars, they have guests coming over, they visit their friends, their apartment might get burned down, an ambulance might need to get there…
As if this is not our own country. As if we’re here only temporarily, to have a sleepover and then take off to Mars. People pay out their loans during the course of their lifetimes, they arrange their homes as if from a magazine picture, and outside – utter chaos.
“The investors” pick out a land lot. You can’t blame them, that’s what they do – they build and they collect money. The mayors and the municipal councils have received our votes to manage the public good on behalf of the citizens, but that doesn’t stop them from changing the plans to make certain individuals happy. They’re selling the space so there’d be enough money for the salaries in the state administration – now.
Citizens buy an apartment without asking where they’ll park their cars, where their kids will go to kindergarten or school, how a fire engine will reach them if a fire breaks out… And on top of that, a restaurant will take over your sidewalk and take away your sleep by blasting loud music. And the municipality will allow this torture just to keep the “investor” happy. As if the apartment in which you live in is not an investment.
What’s the point of living in a city when the quality of life is worse than living in a remote village? But, it serves us right for electing municipal authorities who don’t care about the state or the municipality. Moreover, tomorrow, they’ll shamelessly appear in front of their neighbours and take a walk in the ruined neighbourhood.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
