• Friday, 22 November 2024

National Security Agency to get new head in 20 days' time

National Security Agency to get new head in 20 days' time
Skopje, 24 November 2022 (MIA) - Twenty days from now, the National Security Agency will get a new director. Yesterday, the government held a closed session in which the current NSA head informed ministers about the case involving the issuance of a Macedonian citizenship to the Ukrainian national Oleksandr Onyshchenko. I cannot give you more information because the session was closed. The government issued a press release about the conclusions made to revoke his citizenship, Prime Minister Dimitar Kovachevski said Thursday at Q&A session in Parliament. At the monthly session, Kovachevski was asked by VMRO-DPMNE MP Antonio Miloshoski whether he had known about Onyshchenko during his five-month tenure and whether he had been told about him by the NSA head. After the prime minister didn't answer the question directly, Miloshoski said Kovachevski must have known that Onyshchenko had been awarded citizenship, adding he was fourth on the United States blacklist as a spy of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Onyshchenko, according to Miloshoski, had established ties in the country when Zoran Zaev was prime minister in order to import gas. Kovachevski had known this, but he is not allowed to say, the opposition MP stated. Earlier, VMRO-DPMNE MP Silvana Angelevska read the prime minister's written response as regards the quantity of coal provided for REK Bitola and TEC Oslomej, the countries from where coal has been provided, the price and how much has been paid so far. Reading the written response, she said that 223,637 tons of coal have been provided for the coal-fired plant in Bitola from Greece and Albania, and 414,136 tons of coal from Macedonia, Greece, Albania and Kosovo for the thermal power plant in Oslomej in 2022. Since the start of the year, EUR 33 million has been paid for the procurement of coal for REK Bitola and TEC Oslomej, she said.