1 Waiting for the new US Ambassador Angela Price Aggeler, who has vouched to Washington senators that fighting the corruption in Macedonia would be her main task, we’re certainly not wasting any time with providing more work for her.
Thus, we’ve gained yet another unique example in the story of the fight against corruption and the protection of justice and the rule of law. A government official, such as Arafat Muaremi from the Financial Police in this case, has removed the Chief Prosecutor, in this case Vilma Ruskovska, who has, in turn, by order of the court conducted a search in the offices of the state institution where he is the director. Let’s see if another prosecutor dares conduct an investigation against a state official now.
In another case, it has become a regular practice in Macedonia to deliver justice in such a way that the defendants with a lot of money buy their freedom by making a bargain with the court, they get suspended or reduced sentences and they have the right to choose to serve their prison sentence on a boat in a lake. Truth be told, Vilma Ruskovska herself has once said that there is no use of the rich oligarchs spending their time in jail instead of buying out their sentence, so that the state could build kindergartens.
Come and we shall strike a deal, if you have money, justice will be served.
2 No wonder people are making fun of the electricity saving measures by the government. This is simply due to the fact that no one believes that the burden of the energy crisis will be shared equally.
Who is worried about electricity becoming more expensive? Those who pay. Those who don’t pay have nothing to worry about, others pay for them anyway.
And this is no laughing matter. There will be no electricity. What little electricity we’ll have, will be very expensive. But such a dramatic warning and an announcement of government measures for electricity saving are taken seriously only in serious countries. Our jokes about the government measures don’t stem from people being unserious, but rather from people not having faith in the institutions. More precisely, people don’t have faith in those who are cramped up in the institutions, some of them by party privilege, some of them by simply belonging to a certain ethnic group.
I wonder how the Government will succeed in punishing the manangers of institutions which will fail to save 15% of the electricity they used last year? If it punishes them, let them publish lists every month, so that we can see what party the punished people are members of. They can’t even punish the employees who fail to show up at work, let alone managers who are appointed there by a certain party.
Honestly, this time, it might actually be better for them not to show up at work. We could save some money on all the heaters they turn on in spite of the district heating, the forgotten light bulbs and the laptops left running the whole time. That way, our only loss would be the salaries we pay them.
3 How many more people need to get employed and not come to work, in order to apply the methodology proposed by the Minister of Public Administration, Admirim Aliti, that 31.5% of Albanians should have state jobs? In his calculations, he has also included the Albanians who, according to the latest Census, have stated that they live abroad.
The Director of the State Statistics Office, Apostol Simovski, says that only the population living in Macedonia should be included in the calculation. The minister, however, says that the calculation should also include those living abroad, those who are not included in the Census and those who boycotted the Census. Let them work in Switzerland, and let them receive their pension here.
I wonder what the municipality of Aracinovo has done with the half a million euros they received from Zaev’s government, just like that, “for rainy days”. They will instantly accuse you of being a Macedonian nationalist. And when you compare that the lowest collection of property tax is in Tetovo (55%) and Gostivar (40%) and that the highest collection of property tax is in Veles and Gjorce Petrov (97%) and Kavadarci and Aerodrom (95%), they will make a Macedonian nationalist out of you again.
The Minister of Finance, Fatmir Besimi, is coming up with tax reforms with a “green tax”, he’s calculating how little they’d tax the interest of saving deposits and he’s writing columns with definitions about fair taxation. Where does Besimi live? In what other country are entire municipalities unable to collect even 50% of the tax and whole enclaves pay no taxes at all?
It is not about nationalism. This is not an ethnic issue. This is a “pocket” issue. This is about money.
And when the government says: one society for all, it doesn’t mean that the state should be fair to everyone, except for the ones paying tax.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
