Skopje, 27 March 2025 (MIA) – The President of the Association of Local Self-Government Units (ZELS) and mayor of Kisela Voda, Orce Gjorgjievski, stated Thursday that around 40 additional inspectors need to be hired to meet the minimum requirements for municipalities to function properly.

He said that controls need to be conducted everywhere and municipalities will assist each other in this process. In the near future, efforts will be made to appoint an appropriate inspector in every municipality, Gjorgjievski said.

He said that the situation is not something new, noting that municipalities have already been cooperating on inspection services.

“When I became mayor, there were practically no inspectors in the municipality, neither in construction nor housing. No inspection services were functioning in our municipality. I won’t go into the reasons, whether they were objective or subjective, but the first inter-municipal cooperation I began was with the Municipality of Gjorche Petrov. Now, we are a municipality that assists with inspections in other municipalities,” Gjorgjievski said.

In regard to the inspections of residential buildings, Gjorgjievski stated that older buildings face issues with fire hydrant system, but stressed that problems cannot be solved overnight, and we need to start from somewhere.

“The most frequent problem is the lack of adequate equipment, especially hoses in the hydrants. It has been ordered by our services, in cooperation with Protection and Rescue Directorate, that this be resolved in the near future. We are focusing on allowing time to correct all past mistakes before moving on to penalties. It is easier to impose a fine, but much harder to change the system and establish one that citizens have deserved for more than thirty years,” Gjorgjievski said.

He also said that each municipality will be required to send reports of the completed inspections to ZELS, which will then be made available to the public.

Photo: MIA archive