REK Bitola, Macedonia’s main energy producing plant, is in a dire situation with very low coal reserves, the opposition VMRO-DPMNE party has warned. As a result, one of its three units is turned off, and another operates at the bare minimum capacity.

There are only 3,000 tons of coal in the reserves. The closure of the second unit did not help reduce the crisis, since there is not enough coal to keep even the remaining two units operational. The third bloc of the plant operates at just 125 MW. Nothing like this has ever happened in the history of the plant, the party said in a press release.

VMRO-DPMNE Vice President Aleksandar Nikoloski accused the ruling SDSM party of using the large coal mining and energy plant as a slush fund, saying that the only change there is that the trucks of outside contractors hired to work in REK Bitola now have license plates from Strumica – the home town of the ruling Zaev family.

The fact of the matter is that REK Oslomej in Kicevo has not been operational for a long time, and of the three units in Bitola, only one works. This leaves Macedonia without sufficient energy. That is why lakes Ohrid and Prespa were being drained – to produce energy through the hydro plants along the Crn Drim river – because the two major plants we rely on are not operational, Nikoloski said.