Skopje, 20 August 2024 (MIA) — The government should first settle the eight million euro debt to Skopje's JSP for issuing free student bus passes if they want to solve the problems in the city's public transport company, Skopje Mayor Danela Arsovska told a news conference Tuesday in response to a reporter's question about the state of the public transit in the capital.

Mayor Arsovska held her own news conference to present her take on Monday's meeting with Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski and Minister of Local Self-Government Zlato Perinski, after the latter gave a press conference about it after the meeting.

The three top officials met Monday to discuss solutions to the ongoing problems regarding public transport and waste collection in the capital.

For these problems, Arsovska blamed uncooperative City of Skopje council members who did not support projects planned in her election platform and voted against programs important for the city.

At the Monday meeting, she said, she had requested the government pay JSP the debt of eight million euros dating from 2021 and received an answer that it would be paid through a reallocation of "funds intended the construction of a new boulevard in [Skopje's] Vizbegovo." 

She she said she considered this "coercion to the detriment of citizens, and not partnership and offering solutions".

Another proposal given at the meeting, she said, was to procure new ecological buses through a procurement committee made up of councilors, who would implement the plan, while the mayor would just sign off on it.

"This is nothing new," Arsovska said. "This has been going on for two years now."

She said the JSP problem was complicated, firstly because of the eight million euro debt the government was not paying the company. 

Other years, she claimed, there had been direct subsidies to JSP as well as 15 million euros of assistance from the central government. In the past four years, however, JSP had not gotten any state funding, she said.

"You can't be considering any solutions if one side does not meet any of their obligations. You can't duck responsibility, least of all political responsibility, if you don't pay for something you said you would and had decided to," the Skopje major said.

"While, on the other hand, you don't support any of the programs these institutions really need so they can work. The main problem we have is that people create a problem and then instead of solving it, they double it," she added.

She said she had offered solutions for JSP's need of more buses and different timetables as well as for the public cleaning and waste collection services problem during the Monday meeting with Mickoski and Perinski.

If the other side had been honest, she said, they would have said that they would vote.

"If people had voted two years ago for what was then offered, we would have had a completely new fleet of JSP vehicles by now, but then it would not be possible to spit on Danela," Arsovska said, pointing out that Mickoski had promised new buses to the people of Skopje together with her. 

She also said Skopje voters chose 45 councilors who now "receive 500 euros a month for one council session where they don't vote for anything."

According to her, if procurement procedures had started two years ago and if the city had procured 50 buses each year, JSP would have had 150 new buses by now.

Unfortunately, she added, Mickoski and Perinski said there was no money for new buses, "the budget was devastated" and they would not vote for this proposal. 

"Even so, we will propose this again, so let them not vote for it," she said.

"He could have said, like Gruevski did, he would buy 250 buses and bring them to the people of Skopje. We would not have had any problem with that. We would have accepted any constructive proposal. Unfortunately, they did not propose anything. They said they did not like our solutions,"  Arsovska said. mr/