Ohrid, 19 August 2022 (MIA) – President Stevo Pendarovski says he expects responsibility and an investigation to be conducted into the Swimming Federation and the cancellation of this year’s Ohrid Swimming Marathon. These are serious allegations, he stresses after the information he got from the new management of the Federation. “The new management of the Macedonian Swimming Federation has notified me that they’ve submitted reports to the State Commission for Prevention of Corruption and the Public Prosecutor's Office after the first revision of the work of the previous management and marathon organizers. I expect it won’t take years and years to understand whether a crime has truly transpired, evidenced by findings from the revision and the statements by the new management, because these serious findings were presented to me by the president of the Federation,” Pendarovski says. Following the opening of the 55th Summer School of the International Seminar for Macedonian Language, Literature and Culture at the Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, in response to a reporter’s question, the President notes that the comments for the cancellation of the Ohrid Marathon were politically motivated. “I know there are people in the opposition who don’t understand certain things. It’s impossible, however, to make no difference between patron, organizer and sponsor. I’m a patron of the International Seminar, but I have no contact with its financial construction. I’ve taken over some patronages from my predecessors. We can help informally, asking for sponsorships from private firms, but the President’s Office has never given money and funds to organize any event under the auspices of the President,” Pendarovski underlines. The President's office staff, he adds, went back 10 years and found that not a dime has been given from the President’s budget for any event. dk/ba/