Skopje, 10 July 2023 (MIA) — The city's sanitation services are running on a normal schedule again, with employees back to work and all garbage being collected; the recent blockade was 'politically instructed' to undermine the credibility of Skopje's waste collection company and its director as well as Skopje Mayor Danela Arsovska, Communal Hygiene director Kosana Mazneva told a press conference Monday.

Accompanied by Mayor Arsovska, Mazneva said it was a small group of employees that had obstructed employees in their efforts to collect garbage. For more than 15 years, she said, these individuals had been working only the night shift or did not show up for work at all.

"Only after public pressure became unbearable did the authorities do their job and lift the blockade," Mazneva said. She added the blockade also included non-employees connected to the 'mafia structures' in the company.

When asked who these 'mafia structures' members were, she said the Ministry of Interior and the prosecution were given their names and the company had filed charges against them.

Mazneva also said charges would be filed against persons spreading misinformation in the media to stir outrage. She stressed that the sanitation services workers had received their salaries in full as well as an annual bonus for the first time since 2007. Also, she said, they had been given new personal protective equipment for the first time in years.

Mayor Arsovska pointed out that Mazneva was the first director of Communal Hygiene to confront the 'mafia' in the company.

She said the 1,400 employee-company "had been held hostage by a hundred family-related characters led by mafia structures" and Mazneva had acted appropriately when she fired "these mobsters" last month and filed charges against them.

"They started rioting only after they saw nobody was joking or giving in to their pressure, threats, and ultimatums," Arsovska said, adding: "You should welcome that someone is dealing with these mobsters for the first time in 30 years."

The Skopje mayor added that although the company employed people who were related among themselves, "we see people as honest or dishonest, workers and non-workers" so "there is no place for dishonest people and non-workers" in the company.

"We caught people who had permanently moved to Germany or Switzerland and had lived there in the past five years while still receiving a [Communal Hygiene] salary," Arsovska said.

"We are not talking about individuals and we are not talking about clans. We are talking about non-workers, dishonest people and mobsters, about people who committed crimes on the job and there is no defending them," she added.

Asked to comment on some municipality mayors' proposals to take over the city's sanitation services, Arsovska replied that people "from the DPMNE-SDSM coalition" wanted to score political points by saying these things while "being photographed as influencers on the streets." 

"They should stick to their responsibilities instead of pretending to be influencers, acting and taking pictures of themselves. They should get to work and clean up their own neighborhoods first. Then we'll talk," Arsovska said. mr/