Skopje, 20 February 2023 (MIA) – The Parliament debate on the dismissal of Minister of Information Society and Administration, Admirim Aliti, ended on Monday evening. Voting is to be scheduled at a later time. 

Vice President of the Parliament, Goran Misovski, said the session will resume at 8:30 pm and its agenda includes debate on the dismissal of Minister without portfolio in charge of diaspora, Xhemail Chupi. 

Monday afternoon's debate mostly saw MPs trading accusations over the hacker attack on the Health Insurance Fund and other state institutions instead of debating Minister Aliti's dismissal. 

According to opposition MPs, there are two possibilities why hacker attacks are carried out - either hackers have understood that the government doesn't know how to protect the system at all and they are asking them for money in return for their data, or the government deliberately deletes databases with its crimes. In response, MPs from the ruling majority pointed out that VMRO-DPMNE constantly blocks, mentioning everything the party had done while in power.  

The opposition accused the government of not following reports from the state institutions. According to VMRO-DPMNE MP Antonijo Miloshoski, the State Audit Office has timely warned the government that there is a weakness in the functioning of the IT system of the Health Insurance Fund.

"Had they seen the audit report, we wouldn't have such problems now," said Miloshoski. 

The opposition also accused Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski of reading books with his headphones on during the parliamentary session and not listening to anything the MPs say. VMRO-DPMNE MP Dafina Stojanoska even said he was worse than his predecessor Zoran Zaev.

"I'm listening very carefully to what all of you are saying. Regarding what is happening in the Health Insurance Fund, in an interview with MIA yesterday I thanked all the IT engineers who are working 24/7 to deal with this problem arising from a hybrid attack. Such hybrid attacks happened in other institutions and are happening in other NATO member countries and EU member countries in the neighborhood and beyond.

"The people who are working to eliminate this problem managed today to resolve the biggest part of the problem, and the payment of sick leaves and other refunds has already started, as well as the payment of all other regular payments at about 30 clinics. All the lies told that the databases were compromised, and that no one was doing any work there turned out to be false," Kovachevski said. 

The debate on Minister Aliti's dismissal began on Friday, after the debate on Minister Bekim Sali's dismissal ended the night before.