1 You create an army of 200,000 workers in the public administration, you run out of money and can’t pay them, the loan agreement with the IMF is late and – you come up with a system to service the needs of that army, but you present that to the public under the name of “tax reform”.

It is what it is. There’s no money. The tax reform the Minister of Finance Fatmir Besimi announced is reduced to a reform to ensure a salary for party voters. The minister didn’t mention whether the state administration will be reformed, whether state and municipal institutions will start saving money, whether the grey economy will be decreased by improving digitalization, whether they’ll look for new sources of financing, whether they’ll reduce the number of employees who depend on the budget, whether the ones earning a state salary but refuse to work will be forced to work, whether those who evade taxes and launder money will be indiscriminately punished. Or even whether they’ll increase the taxes for all those made extra profits during the Covid crisis.

The Government itself admits that there is a lot of grey economy. And what are they doing to tackle grey economy? They’ll introduce additional taxes on white economy. Hit salaries, freelance fees and savings deposits – hit them hard. Since that’s where the damage to society comes from, not from the party army hired in all sorts of offices and public enterprises or the corruption starting from the smallest municipal enterprise all the way to ministerial departments.

The government calculated that with the new taxes it will collect 54 million euros. Is it too much, is it not enough for the budget? I really don’t know. It’s not about how high the taxes will be but where that money will end up. The number of those who pay taxes is limited. And the number of people who need to be bought as party voters is increasing. Each party has two target groups that are crucial for it when elections come: pensioners and public administration. They’ll deal with the pensioners – they’ll give them a thousand denars more and provide them with enough money for 20 loaves of bread. However, public administration needs to be bought with a salary. Rename the job positions from advisers to associates, with the same salary and fees as in Zaev’s time and sell it to people as a tax reform. We’ll take more money from the ones who pay taxes, as for the ones who don’t, we’ll see, we feel sorry for them.

DUI doesn’t need to buy voters because entire families, including the ones who’ve moved abroad, have been bought with state salaries. While SDSM declares war on the law-abiding, on the ones whose votes, in addition to the party army, made it possible for them to come to power. A war on the people whose hopes for depoliticised society have been shattered and on all those who are disappointed that clientelism wins over expertise, but are still willing to cut them some slack – we know they’re not competent and that they’re hiding that incompetence with arrogance, but at least they are (still) not thugs like VMRO-DPMNE.

What benefits will citizens have when, even in the second mandate of SDSM, the following rule applies: Criminals will be granted a pardon and a long holiday in Struga, the bandits affiliated to the party will be given tenders, whereas the companies and the law-abiding citizens will be given taxes.

The government is looking for a way to service the needs of the administration, and not the ones of all citizens. As a result, instead of being of service to citizens, the state is turning into an enemy.

2 In fact, the tax reform announced by Fatmir Besimi was illustrated best by his fellow DUI party member Abdul Selami. He, as the Deputy Director of the Public Revenue Office, in other words, one of the people who have insights into the process of collecting taxes in the budget, after 33 employees of the Skopje utility company were fired for not coming to work, threatened the mayor Danela Arsovska with a post on Facebook: “Don’t think you’ve found a mountain without a wolf and can do as you please”.

It’s a pity the DUI government official quickly deleted the post. Since not only does he expertly define the tax reform, but he also manages to put a lot of wisdom into a single sentence and summarize the essence of governance in our country – we in the government are the wolves, and you’re the sheep.

3 Minister Besimi talks about SMART public finance as a system to fill the budget, according to which we will all pay our fair share. What sort of fair taxation are we talking about in a state in which political patronage has been elevated to a level of something sacred and party privileges apply since the moment you’re employed to the moment of taxation?

In our country, not a single reform can go well because of said political patronage. Because we know in advance that the changes the reform needs to bring don’t apply to everyone. There’ll always be party exceptions. We can’t properly implement even a parking system. The minute someone dares to bring some order, even to the parking problem, there will always be a dude from the party who’s untouchable and destroys the whole system. And the Minister of Finance is spinning us a yarn about SMART finances and green tax.

I don’t really know what the SMART filling the budget actually is, but every time I’m driving on the motorway from Skopje to Gostivar, I wonder why it’s not possible to pay the motorway toll with the electronic cards of the PE for State Roads, as is the case on the motorway from Gevgelija to Shtip. What’s so smart about the fact that for years the electronic toll collection on the way to Tetovo and Gostivar hasn’t started working, just so they’d be able to hire party voters, and on top of that, to give them the opportunity to steal. There has to be cash for the wolf. Just try to keep its cash under control. It will immediately threaten you with a mountain.

4 I can see why Macedonians are still bothered by the grandiose celebration of the Framework Agreement and the flaunting of the Albanian flag at those celebrations. What I can’t understand though is why Macedonian politicians are bothered by a dignified celebration of Ilinden.

All the vuvuzelas and the booing at Mechkin Kamen, the flags with the star from Kutlesh, the “No” t-shirts on the Day of the Republic, the curses and the going back and forth proving who’s betrayed Macedonia and who’s the greatest Macedonian patriot – Albanians are not to blame for that.

Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski