Instead of calorimeters we need ‘fool-o-meters’

Erol Rizaov

I’ve been watching this new suspicious story in the media for days now, the one that humiliates and insults the citizens of Macedonia. First, they proposed a bill that requires the installation of thousands of calorimeters that need to measure the heat and cold of each home that has a central heating system. After the legal theft of 200, 300, and more euros was discovered, and started the preparation to drag the hand deep into the pockets of the poorest population in Europe, the alarm in the fire department in the government went off. The first ‘fireman’ came out and said “Wait a minute, don’t hurry, I know the law says that, but we’ll add some by-law acts and you won’t have to pay for the calorimeters. When he saw that the citizens did not buy it, he came out again, this time with an announcement that the bill did not apply to the old consumers, and that the new buildings will have those calorimeters basically for free. A win-win situation for all.

After the government spat all over the law, it would be nice if we would all collectively and publicly spit all over this proposed bill and asked them – are you going to use these calorimeters to ruin things, after the citizens spent 11 years fighting and suffering? Are you going to use these calorimeters to pardon the ones that go to court and are charged with crimes? We should immediately get fool-o-meters to measure the mental capacity of those who thought they can take what their predecessors left of the poor people, and squeeze out the last drop like parasites. We must instantly bring to light the lobbyists and the ones behind this attempt for massive fraud of the population, so it never crosses their minds again and think of these kind of acts, the kind that, at one time, make people buy fiscal cash registers three times. Do you remember this?

This situation brings another much more important and delicate issue, which almost went unnoticed. The first ‘fireman’ of the government, Koco Angjusev, publicly announced on “24 News” that it was a terrible mistake that the distributive networks in Macedonia were privatized. I’ve thought and said the same for years. Well, people of the government, consider the possibility that the ownership of all major and significant distributions that were once state-owned, and were sold under very suspicious and criminal circumstances, is brought back to state-ownership. If it needs to be paid, then pay, no one would mind.
On the contrary, there are strong arguments to bring them back as public property. And here’s why. The citizens of Macedonia are the real shareholders and owners of a major part of the distributive network of electric and heating energy, as well as the telecommunication. They invested hundreds of millions of dollars of their own money for the construction of the distributive networks, for the electric and heating energy, the landline and mobile telecommunication, for the water supply and sanitary sewer system. The paid for this while buying an apartment, building a house or when the asked for a telephone or electricity connection, when they asked for central heating and water supply and sanitary system they paid extremely high prices, a lot higher than the actual price. The citizens of Macedonia participated in the construction of these systems that later became private gold mines. The criminal authorities of the transition, both SDSM and VMRO-DPMNE, dismantled this public property and sold these gold mines for a very low price, a lot lower than the actual price, which is an indicator for crime and corruption.

Just check how many substations were built and paid with public money, how many highways were built with loans taken from employees and were never paid back, check how many people got their phone lines for the enormous price of one thousand Deutsche Marks, that’s two thousand Euros in today’s value, check how many people paid for their water and sanitary system, and additional sums for their apartments to get central heating, and many other robberies the Macedonian population had to take from this country. Check these facts as soon as you can, before someone comes up with the idea to sell the water supply and sanitary system, the highways and the lakes, although half of Macedonia lacks drinking water. It’s embarrassing.

This is why, Mr. Angjusev, you should throw away this new bill. Tell everyone that it is not valid, and say it loudly. Publicly reveal the lobbyists of this deal. Propose a law that will fully protect the citizens. The ones that still have monopoly on the market should pay extra profit taxes due to their privileged positions on the market. The ones that collect money for heating, whether it is winter or summer, those who decide everything, should buy and assemble the calorimeters under supervision and stop charging in their own interest. Everyone with central heating shouldn’t have a lower temperature than 22 Celsius degrees in their homes. If it’s less than that, the distributer should pay damages to the citizens etc. You know how you should protect your citizens from the greedy, corrupted monopolists. This time you have a much stronger reason to do this because you took the responsibility to protect the capital and the entire country from pollution. Invest from the extra profit from the monopolists that you will get from the cheap gas heating, and stop taking from the poor.

And about the distributive networks and their return to public ownership, that would be a historic decision, which needs to be seriously analyzed along with the possibility to make them share companies in which the citizens will have their share. This is the way to repair the great injustice that was done by the previous authorities.