CIAO BELLA

by | 25 November, 2022

With Japan’s help, Macedonia got a space programme as well.

1 The Court of Appeal in Skopje overturned the first-instance verdict of 8 years in prison for Sasho Mijalkov and ordered a retrial of the Special Public Prosecutor’s case “Vault” for the procurement of communications monitoring equipment.

Millions of dollars have been given for trainings, so the U.S. Ambassador Angela Aggeler might get surprised yet again that the first instance court had committed “substantial violations in the handling in this case” and that it took a year and a half for the higher court to determine that. The real question isn’t whether this verdict will come as a surprise to the U.S. Ambassador or any of the other ambassadors, whose countries have poured millions into the fight against corruption and for judicial reforms. The real question is why we aren’t surprised. Just as we’re not surprised that the Court of Appeal has shelved the sentence of 12 years in prison for the former director of  the Administration for Security and Counterintelligence, Mijalkov, and the one for the main case “Fortress – Target” – for the illegal wiretapping of thousands of citizens.

We’re surprised by one thing only – how are we still managing to put up with this? Why are we still imagining that we have a state?

Unless this too is an elaborate plan as part of some great geostrategic story and Mijalkov is supposed to help with another change to the Constitution.

2 Meanwhile, the Government is on a roll. Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski recorded a video at the construction site of the Kichevo – Ohrid route and wrote: The motorway is no longer an unattainable goal! As if they’re building it under sea. A 57 km long motorway that has been under construction since 2014, after 8 years is “no longer an unattainable goal”.

One part of the transformer for MEC Bitola has successfully arrived. Every single day we carefully followed the journey of each kilometre. The transformer set out from Turkey, the transfer arrived by ship in Thessaloniki, the transformer was on its way to Bitola, the transformer crossed the border. ESM  (Macedonian Power Plants) announced that the “transport of the new transformer is the largest and the heaviest oversize load ever transported to our country”. This Government was fortunate to get all the historic events. In the 70s, when MEC was being built, who knew how heavy the transformer was and how it was transported. They brought it, they installed it, the only thing we knew was that we had electricity.

Since we’re making historic comparisons and we’re counting how many kilometres of earthworks have been done, which are no longer an unattainable goal in the 21st century, if we were in the 19th century they would bring the transformer on the railway whose construction started in 1891 and Bitola was already connected to Thessaloniki in 1894. A small flaw is that on that historic day, when one part of the transformer arrived in Bitola, another historic record was set – the journey from Skopje to Bitola took 10 hours.

3 At the handover of an echo machine the Japanese Embassy donated to the Department of Paediatrics, the doctors said to the ambassador: This machine is like a space shuttle for us”.

In just one week, the Japanese government donated an x-ray machine to the Clinical Hospital in Shtip, an echo machine and a CTG machine to the Gynaecology Department in the hospital in Kochani. Three machines, each of which costs about 50,000 euros. About as much as one official car for a newly elected official, a director of a public enterprise, or a mayor. It costs even less than the jeeps of the priests who are in charge of the parishes on whose territory are the hospitals equipped by Japanese taxpayers. The Macedonian state hasn’t provided enough money for the necessary, basic diagnostic devices, that finally, now that they’ve received the machines they need to work, the doctors are so happy with them that they seem like “space shuttles” to them.

So, the government is not on a roll only when it comes to the European integration processes. With Japan’s help, Macedonia got a space programme as well.

4 VMRO-DPMNE expanded the list of reasons why they’re demanding early parliamentary elections. The latest one, and by far the most original, is to save Skopje from Danela Arsovska, who was their candidate running for mayor. At the parliamentary elections they will save the capital from themselves.

They’re blaming SDSM for Danela’s incompetence. Apparently, they had planted her as their candidate. Although, when they were telling them she hadn’t paid for electricity in the companies she worked for, that she had a Bulgarian identity card, VMRO management was busy taking photos with the successful manager, “the mother of the city” and sang “Bella Ciao”…

Well, ciao bella! The damage has been done. The people of Skopje will have to put up with Danela for another three years. VMRO-DPMNE doesn’t mind that the capital is paralyzed. The money – there’s the rub. VMRO-DPMNE openly said that if the Government took over Arsovska’s credentials for the capital projects in the capital, companies owned by SDSM would be hired. That’s why Mickoski is asking for parliamentary elections. So VMRO-DPMNE would win and so the money would go to companies owned by VMRO.

5 And what kind of quality the big money given by VMRO companies can provide can be seen in the centre of Skopje. The Theatre is falling apart. The Constitutional Court along with the Archaeological Museum is falling apart. The City Square is falling apart. The fountains are falling apart. MEPSO is falling apart. The facade of the Government is falling apart…

It’s been five years since the Minister of Culture, Robert Alagjozoski, formed a special expert committee to evaluate the buildings of “Skopje 2014”, which suggested that most building be demolished. It’s obvious that besides the fact they’re ugly and non-functional they’re also unsafe. If a fire breaks out from a short circuit with all that leaked water, God forbid, people will die inside the theatre from a stampede. And it’s not just the theatre. Most governmental buildings of “Skopje 2014” haven’t undergone commissioning.

And what happened? Five ministers of culture have changed, the SDSM Government shelved the audit conducted by experts. Couldn’t they finish at least one court procedure with such obvious evidence of theft and low-quality construction? After five years of all the buildings falling apart, they found themselves in a position where guys from VMRO are teasing them “You don’t even know how to paint the walls of the buildings Gruevski built for you”.

No guys, you’ve got it all wrong. The theatre that’s falling apart is so new that if it had been built better there wouldn’t be any need to paint its walls.

They’ve robbed us. They’ve robbed us blind. In other countries, politicians get arrested for corruption, but the country keeps the roads, railways, airports, ports, state facilities. We’re left without money, without a theatre, without a museum, without a Universal Hall, without a motorway to Ohrid, without a post office, without a city square, without public transport… And we’re left without the main thief. It’s yet another achievement of SDSM – he ran away. So now he’s free to offer his painting services to them all the way from Budapest.

 

Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski