1 The director of the State Transport Inspectorate, Rufi Huseini, first complained that he didn’t have enough inspectors to inspect all the transport companies that have buses. Then, after the Government ordered him to conduct an immediate inspection at the company “Besa Trans,” whose bus killed 45 people on a motorway in Bulgaria, the inspectors went to their offices in Skopje and Tetovo, but the door was closed and no one was answering the phone. So, now they’ll send a letter to the owners of “Besa Trans” to make an appointment so the inspectors could go conduct an immediate inspection. If they’re ok with that, of course… If “Besa Trans” allows it. After the biggest bus accident in Europe in the last 10 years. After it was determined that the bus in which 45 passengers were burnt to death had crossed the state border 135 times with forged documents. At a company whose passenger transport license has been expressly revoked.
And we, fools that we are, demand resignation. From who? From a civil servant who doesn’t answer to anyone, except maybe to the party leader who appointed him to that position. He has no intention of doing his job, let alone resign.
2 All right, you’d think, accidents happen. But, the crushing fact is that we never seem to learn from them. The accident itself is shocking. The death toll of 45 passengers is shocking. But what’s also shocking is the realization that the careless behavior of the government, whichever it may be, the incompetent behaviour of the state institutions and the slow judiciary is something that has long since become normal for us. It’s become a commonplace for us to pay the incompetent and corrupt institutions a blood tax.
And the most crushing thing is that all of this no longer bothers us. Apart from the rare outbursts of rage and sadness, we do nothing. We’ve come to terms with living in depressive lethargy. Making ends meet until the next accident.
3It’s no consolation that the bus with a forged passenger transport license had driven in an EU member state as well. It’s no consolation that a road sign on the motorway in Bulgaria had fallen and stayed on the ground for five months. People immediately say – see? They are in the EU, but it’s the same there as over here. At least there they raise the issue of safety barriers, the quality of asphalt, the traffic signalization system, cat’s eyes and clean shoulder lanes. In our country, people think you’re crazy if you ask why the grass along the roadside isn’t mowed and why the branches cover the signs. Wow, stop asking stupid questions. The road signs are daubed over with paint!? The colour has faded!? We have horses and cows running on our motorways, and you’re concerned about the road signs. If the motorway section near Pernik was so unsafe due to bad traffic signalization that 45 people died at once, then over here the section from Kicevo to Ohrid through Debarca should immediately be banned for traffic.
Roads and technically unfit buses are just one link in the chain of our risky survival. When you think about it, it’s not like our life is safe at home or at work. Ranging from stolen fire hydrant hoses, uninspected elevators, moving into buildings which haven’t undergone commissioning, inaccessible emergency stairs, fire trucks and ambulances unable to get somewhere because of illegally parked cars, all the way to basements and garages full of rubbish and God knows what that’s potentially a ticking bomb… Entire state institutions are housed in administrative buildings which haven’t undergone commissioning.
On the other hand we have hundreds of laws, rules, directives harmonized with EU regulations and just as many state inspectorates, directorates, agencies and commissions with their army of office staff hired in all sorts of coalition – bootlicking ways, whose main task is not to be the competent authority for the things they actually are the competent authority.
The “Besa Trans” bus crash will be like the one of “Durmo Turs” and will drag on over 100 court hearings by presenting expert evidence, counter-expert evidence and super expert evidence and we’ll continue to make ends meet until the next accident. It’s a good thing that at least we have Facebook and Twitter. We have to do this, we have to do that, we have to do it this way, we have to do it that way… What do we have to do? The only thing we have to do is to die. Get angry, comment, sleep on it and – forget it.
4 But like all wonders, the mourning for 45 lost lives lasts for three days. And we immediately return to the most important topics – Zaev’s resignation, Mickoski’s snap elections, who’ll be part of the new parliamentary majority – will it be Alternativa, will it be Alijansa, will it be Besa… DUI certainly will be.
The essential questions such as how many director-level positions there’ll be and which party will get them in order to save the European integration can’t be overpowered even by the great global problems – the new coronavirus mutation, the expensive electricity, the expensive gas, the lack of chips, the lack of paper, the rising food prices, the inflation growth…
But we don’t seem to care about that. Our lives don’t depend on those global topics. Our lives are paralyzed in the gap between two majorities and two accidents.
5 The Government announced that in order to motivate the employees in the public administration not to die from Covid they’d consider economic incentives for the ones who do decide to get vaccinated.
There’s no need for the Government to conduct any analyzes of the incentives which would make anti-vaxxers get vaccinated. The most effective incentive would be for anti-vaxxers to pay for their treatment if they contract Covid-19 and end up in hospital.
Otherwise, it will turn out that the 40 percent who have already been vaccinated, some of whom even rushed to get vaccinated abroad and saved the state money, are the fools who will pay the bills of those who have been acting all smart and have been waiting to see if the vaccinated will die. Moreover, the unvaccinated expose themselves and everyone around them to the risk of infection, blocking hospitals and depriving us all of the right to be treated for other equally dangerous diseases. And if the Government makes the decision that employers will have to pay PCR tests to those who don’t want to get vaccinated, as requested by the unions, then we can declare victory for anti-vaxxers straight away.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
