1 Some companies have been acting immorally, unethically and inappropriately and have manipulated price increases after the anti-crisis measures ceased on 31 May and the 5% tax on basic food products and fuel excise duties returned, said Deputy Prime Minister Fatmir Bytyqi. No kidding? Could it be true? How did the Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs find this out three days after the anti-crisis measures ended? Did perhaps Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski call him from the very important forum in Slovakia, shocked by such unpredictable consequences after the return of the VAT and the excise duty at the regular rate?
Bytyqi announced that the Government is now waiting for a report from the inspection authorities on the measures they’d take. Will they tell us who the manipulators are once they discover them? What about the citizens? What use do we have for the analyses carried out by the Government, when we fell victim to the manipulations of the “immoral, unethical and inappropriate traders” and bought 20% more expensive cooking oil, flour and milk? It’s certain they won’t return our money. Even if they punish the manipulators, the money from the fines will be used to cover the higher salary demands in the public sector.
This year, 31 May caught the Government by surprise, it came unannounced. On the 3 June they were surprised that 31 May had passed. There was a session that day, but it didn’t occur to the ministers that the deadline for their anti-crisis measures would expire at midnight and the price freeze would be over. Not only did they not predict what would happen, they didn’t even see what was happening to them. They hadn’t passed by a petrol station.
And now, we’re surprised that the people driving jeeps lost two hours of their lives to save 500 denars. However, we’re not surprised that the Government announced they have a plan, three days after all the hysteria surrounding the prices. Don’t you see we are already fed up? For two years we’ve been trying to survive the Covid crisis, a war in Europe is threatening us, the Bulgarian veto is blocking our future, the least you expect to happen is for the Prime Minister to hold a press conference to explain his plan before the anti-crisis measures expire. For us to feel that he sympathizes with our concern about making it through this crisis. The summer will be over really soon. I hope the Government won’t be caught off guard when autumn comes unannounced. Instead of attending forums all over Europe, the Prime Minister was supposed to address us. And not to be like – I’ll record a TV interview, they’ll broadcast it while I’m not here and I’ll write something on Facebook. Since, you’re spending so much time on Facebook, at least this way you’ll read I have a plan.
2 Prime Minister Kovachevski probably has a plan how to pay the public administration the 2,806 linear pay rise he promised to the Union after the administrative increase of the minimum salary. Deputy Prime Minister Bytyqi and Minister of Labour and Social Affairs Jovanka Trenchevska along with the President of the Union Darko Dimovski gave speeches at the May Day protest of the union in front of the Government. However, Minister of Finance Fatmir Besimi missed that episode of the series “Wish list”, so he hadn’t planned that money for civil servants with the budget revision.
The plan is simple. The state will borrow 900 million euros. It will collect more money from the VAT of the increased prices and the returns of the excise taxes. And it will give that money to the ones receiving a state salary.
And to the ones who are not in the public administration – we’re sorry. Better luck with their next job.
3 The public administration found it humiliating that their salary was equal to or slightly higher than the minimum salary. Therefore, the simplest solution would be to lower the minimum salary. To bring it back to 15,000, or even better, to 12,000. Let the lowest paid employees in the private sector show some solidarity with the public administration. If their minimum wages are lowered, then the privileged state-administrative class will have no one to compare their salaries with.
If someone had told the employees of the Registry Office to work from 9.00 to 17.00 with the same dedication as when they were blocking one of the main intersections in the centre, under the hot sun, they would have complained to an international union.
Dozen union representatives used couple of cars to make a mess by blocking the intersection which leads to the Clinical Centre in which people from all over the country come for treatment. Do they expect the patients and their relatives, who couldn’t access the clinics, to show them solidarity for their demands for higher salaries? Since, they can’t expect to get solidarity and understanding from the 20,000 people whose lives they complicated by getting their personal data wrong on their birth certificates.
So, in the next episode of “Wish list” be more understanding of the people who’ve been on strike for more than a month and a half. After all, in the periods when they do work and make 20,000 mistakes a year, they work with clients from 9.30 to 14.00 and have a break from 12.00 to 12.30. In addition to the increased salary, which won’t be as humiliating as the minimum salary, it’s about time their collective agreement guaranteed them a longer break.
4 Why did SDSM reject the proposal of VMRO-DPMNE for the candidates for constitutional judges to publicly introduce themselves in the Assembly? If the candidates for ambassadors can have such introduction, if the candidates for members of the Anti-Corruption Commission had such introduction, if such introduction is required for the candidates for the Programming Council of MRTV, then why wouldn’t we be able to hear the candidates for constitutional judges? Personally, I’m more interested in who will defend my Constitution than who will represent me abroad.
SDSM MPs made a mistake by not accepting the proposal of VMRO-DPMNE. This way, for example, they missed the opportunity to ask the candidate for constitutional judge proposed by VMRO-DPMNE, Savo Klimovski, to explain to them why in the spring of 2017 at the protest in front of the Assembly he urged people to “Don’t stand here, go inside”. And they took his advice on 27 April, when the organized attack on the Parliament took place. I wonder how the future constitutional judge Savo Klimovski will face the legal arguments with the President of the Constitutional Court Dobrila Kacarska, who as a judge in the Criminal Court sentenced the attackers of the Assembly for terrorist endangerment of the constitutional order and the security of the state.
5Bu lgarian President Rumen Radev announced that in order for them to life the veto on the start of Macedonia’s EU accession talks, Bulgaria should organize a referendum.
Well, Germany, France, The Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Italy…they all failed to organize referendums when they were admitting Bulgaria to the EU, so now Radev is playing with them. On behalf of Putin.
Translated by Nikola Gjelincheski
