VMRO-DPMNE Vice President Aleksandar Nikoloski said that the growing budget deficit will add 800 million EUR this year, and Macedonia will break through the 60 percent of debt to GDP psychological barrier.

This spending goes to crime, corruption and buying off voters. For comparison sake, the highway from Skopje to Stip cost us 280 million EUR. So we are throwing away almost three such highways. The Government leaves a total of 1.6 billion EUR in deficit spending for future generations and future VMRO-DPMNE led Governments to pay, Nikoloski said.

During his Jadi Burek interview, Nikoloski compared the current deficit to the handling of the finances by previous VMRO Governments. “After the war in Serbia and the refugees from Kosovo, and the 2001 war here, the total debt since independence, was 1.5 billion. That is less than the annual deficit for this year. In 2008, we had the largest global economic crisis in history, and we only had 1.3 billion EUR in debt – the VMRO government actually reduced the debt by 200 million, Nikoloski said.

He pointed to the fact that there are no visible infrastructure projects to account for this huge deficit spending. “The money don’t go into construction, they go to buy off the social groups, to buy peace and quiet for the Government”, he added.