Skopje, 4 October 2024 (MIA) - Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Economy Cvetan Tripunovski said at a press conference Friday that the Government is ready to assist the Municipality of Strumica to solve its drinking water problem.

Tripunovski assessed the situation as an environmental disaster and pointed the fighter directly at Mayor Kostadin Kostadinov. He urged the relevant institutions and the Public Prosecutor’s Office to investigate why “someone allowed the distribution of water that the citizens should not be drinking, since endangering their health is a crime”.

According to the Minister, the water was not bacteriologically clean in the past months either.

“It is a legal obligation of the municipality to provide healthy and high-quality drinking water to its citizens. However, we are seeing a lack of ideas from the local self-government, with the citizens being the collateral damage. We are offering to help; we want to help. At a coordination meeting on Thursday, we engaged all planning regions in the country to help with high quality drinking water, until the problem is resolved, and, if necessary, to invest in systems to improve the quality of water, since someone slept through their term and according to experts the equipment is very old, it hasn’t been modernized at all... Once again, I will say we are ready to help the problem with the lack of drinking water in Strumica. The relevant bodies should launch an investigation into why there were high levels of manganese in the water and certain bacteria in the past as well,” Tripunovski said.

Strumica receives drinking water from the Turija dam. However, for seven days now, the citizens have been forbidden from drinking tap water due to high levels of manganese. At a council session Thursday, Strumica Mayor Kostadinov said the city will face an environmental disaster if the problem isn’t resolved soon.

According to the Mayor, the source of the pollution is the Turija dam, which provides water with high manganese quantities that cannot be filtered to the point of being safe for consumption. He urged the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Economy, Vodostopanstvo enterprise and the Ministry of Environment and Physical Planning to engage in the problem's resolution. 

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