The Government has extended the deadline for municipalities to apply for local infrastructure funds until mid November. While most of the municipalities were well prepared to apply for the 250 million EUR that are made available with the help of a Hungarian state loan, some major municipalities were unprepared and their applications were refused.

These include the capital of Skopje, Saraj and Strumica, whose Mayor Kostadin Kostadinov (SDSM) alleged that the rejection is because of his political affiliation.

The Mayor said that he did not know that only new projects will be accepted and he applied with a project where work has already begun and there is a contracting party elected. The deadline is extended, Strumica will apply and of course it will receive funding, Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said during a Sitel TV interview. He said that first contracts with municipalities will be signed as early as next week.

Regarding the capital Skopje, whose Mayor Danela Arsovska is in a long running feud with Mickoski’s VMRO-DPMNE party who had her elected, Mickoski said that the city submitted proposals for the purchase of new buses and money for street cleaning, which are not infrastructure and are not covered in this call. He accosted Arsovska for holding 10 million EUR provided by the Government for a major boulevard connecting the city center to the ring-road in the direction of the Kosovo border. “For two years, no work has been done on this project. There is talk that the city is trading with the money that were provided to Arsovska, and that there is a competition over who will get the contract”, Mickoski said.