The untouchable DUI

The new criminal charges for high-ranking DUI officials will hardly shake the boat of Ali Ahmeti’s party. Anchored in the style of governance that they have been practicing for ten years since they have been in power, and in the power they have gained through the control of the Albanian voting body, they laugh at the powerless institutions that are trying to put an end to their autocracy. The messages encouraging the services to deal with their eventual crime, certainly noting that justice is not selective, are more intended for the public than they are a real call for the functioning of the rule of law.

According to the Financial Police, Minister of Local Self-Government Suheil Fazliu, who formally belongs to the NDP-party of Vesel Mehmedi, and his predecessor Lirim Shabani illegally gave out royalties in the amount of about 37,000 euros. It is an alleged misuse of the IPA funds and the operational program between Macedonia and Bulgaria. Two employees, through four contracts as additional hired persons, received royalties in the total amount of 2.2 million denars. The State Audit Office recommended that the funds be returned to the IPA funds. Shabani denied the allegation yesterday that any abuses were committed.

Scandals without absolution

The scandals with Albanian ministers, mainly from DUI, usually end with suspicion of committing a crime and without a court order, so they must be taken with a grain of salt.

Three or four months ago, a part of the public blamed that Education Minister Arber Ademi cut deals for 27 tenders with four companies close to DUI companies worth seven million euros. It stayed at that. Deputy Prime Minister Bujar Osmani was suspected by the Special Public Prosecutor’s Office for the “Patient” case. He is charged that as a former health minister, along with 15 other people, he favored and awarded a public procurement of a company from Bulgaria, which he knew did not meet the requirements, but was selected to reconstruct the hospitals in Tetovo and Ohrid, as well as the gynecological clinic Cair in Skopje. Leader Ali Ahmeti, together with Nikola Gruevski, is suspected of failing to carry out the 2011 census. The two spent money on preparing a large statistical operation, but then changed their minds. Musa Xhaferi was charged in the Magyar Telekom case, and MPs Ejup Alimi and Ismet Guru are charged in the ‘Titanic 3’ case etc. The self-injury of the police officer in front of the Mavrovka shopping center was quickly forgotten, as well as the threats to the inspectors who dared to inspect buildings owned by members of the ruling party.

An exception to the suspicions of abuse and crime is the epilogue several years ago when the grandson of Rafiz Aliti was sentenced to two years in prison for causing a fire in the Macedonian Post Offices, causing damage of 100,000 euros. During that period, a number of bloody robberies of postal items took place, with criminals collecting four million euros. Macedonian Post Offices had the money insured, and later charged for it. The stolen money was never found.

DUI ministers are also leader in their incompetence, so you can rarely find a case where someone heads a sector apropos their education and experience. The latest example of this is the Minister of Culture, Asaf Ademi, who is a construction engineer. The Minister of Environment, Sadula Duraki, graduated from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering in Pristina, and in his biography he said that he was a technical teacher for just three years, after which he became a Senior Customs Officer at the Customs Administration, mayor and even Minister of Agriculture in the Government of Vlado Buckovski. The public knows him best from the war in 2001, when together with two other members of the NLA turned off the water supply from Lipkovo Lake, after which the settlements from the Kumanovo region did not have water for several weeks. Immediately afterwards, the meteoric jump in politics of Commander Ventili (Valves) began. He recently made an embarrassing statement on the issue of polluted air, on which by the way, he has not made any statements since he became a minister, and said that Macedonia was not Switzerland and he was not here because of the citizens.

Deputy Prime Minister Hazbi Lika, however, because of a quarrel with Ahmeti, did not show up at his workplace in the government for half a year, but was still regularly paid. He did not even show up on the anniversary of marking the Ohrid Framework Agreement, whose implementation is his task. At one point, Prime Minister Zoran Zaev announced that there will be shifts in the government because it was unacceptable for someone to not come to work and still get paid. Since then, Lika has been regular at the government sessions on Ilinden Street.

Other DUI ministers in the government are so invisible that their names are only mentioned when they are appointed or leaving office, or when they do something embarrassing like that one gaffe by former Justice Minister Bilen Saliu, who persistently parked his official vehicle on the sidewalk in front of the building of the Ministry in the center of Skopje.

They even started thinking about the voters

The editor-in-chief of Lajme, Isen Saliu, who openly criticizes the wrong moves made by the headquarters in Mala Recica, says it may sound ironic, but after the party has weakened and was left with only ten MPs, more account is taken of the staff they propose of the official posts.

“I can finally say that being a blind party militant is no longer the main criterion for becoming an official, they are also concerned with their qualifications. I think that with the exception of some current officials, who are followed by the shadow of suspicion of criminal and corruption acts, most of the current officials are better than the former ones. That is why the general impression is that the weaker the DUI is, the greater the accountability of this party to the voters, and the greater the chances to come to terms with its real staff, who were either in the lower echelons, or were not in any kind of office. From this, one can draw the conclusion that the weaker the DUI, the better for its voters,” Saliu told Nezavisen Vesnik/Independent daily newspaper.

The Democratic Union of Integration is part of the ruling coalition in Skopje, where it manages two sectors: Communal Hygiene and Parks and Greenery. The researchers say that there is a big gap in the communal enterprise after the departure of Rakip Doci and the arrival of Abdusamad Shabani. Despite the real shortage of containers, vehicles and employees in cleaning positions, there is lask of knowledge for managing the situation, because of the fact that the image for Skopje, when it comes to cleanliness, is defeating. The situation in Parks and Greenery is better, where Ardian Muca is doing a good job managing the PR, leaving the impression that the institution is really doing its job.
A particular problem in the management of DUI with the “other side of Vardar” is the Old Skopje Bazaar, which is becoming more and more contemporary, without a sense of history, losing the sensation recognition, turning into a space for realization of the urban complexes and profit interests of DUI.

DUI’s president Ahmeti said several days ago that he encourages the institutions to investigate all developments starting from 2002 up to now, as long as justice is not selective and does not serve only certain groups. The latest criminal charges should show that they are moving in that direction.

Goran Adamovski