The series of scandals about the leasing of construction land under the pretext of state-owned agricultural land by the Minister of Agriculture continues today. At today’s press conference, Cvetan Tripunovski, president of the Commission for Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management of VMRO-DPMNE, announced that they have serious indications that Ljupco Nikolovski abused his position as Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management, illegally leasing huge land plots, presented as agricultural land, but in fact, it is construction land in Skopje.

He presented the second contract, which is based on the same template he presented yesterday.

This is the contract that the ministry, represented by Ljupco Nikolovski, as a minister concluded with a certain Orham Čolović, the contract is dated July 4, 2022 with archive number 39-771014/1. The subject of the contract is the lease of agricultural land with a total area of 73,031 square meters in the municipality of Butel for the establishment of a long-term hazelnut plantation for a period of 70 years. The actual situation is that we are not talking about agricultural land, but about undeveloped land in the territory of Butel municipality, in an area of over 73 thousand square meters. With this contract Nikolovski enables the lessee to appropriate over a fantastic 73 thousand square meters of construction land in Butel at a price of MKD 5,745 annual rent, Tripunovski said.

To make things clearer and what kind of fraud it is, he adds, it can be seen from the fact that a square meter of construction land in that area is sold from 150 euros and up, that is, about 11 million euros would be spent on that plot. Nikolovski gives a plot of over 73 thousand square meters for an annual rent of 5,745, which actually costs about 11 million euros at a real price.

As Tripunovski says, this is the second such contract that Nikolovski has signed in the municipality of Butel, and under the guise of agricultural land, he leases exclusive construction plots.