Discussing the dire conditions of municipal budgets, the Mayor of Veles Ace Kocevski made a shocking revelation – that the municipality of Aracinovo collected a total of 970 denars in property taxes.

The sum amounts to 15 EUR and would be equivalent to a single payment. Kocevski initially said that he would not like to name the municipality, and wanted to discuss the issue of tax evasion on broad, general principles, but later acknowledged that the shocking example he is talking about is in the large, majority Albanian district east of Skopje.

Aracinovo, which is ironically named after the Turkish word for taxes, has long maintained a reputation for its black market economy, and was the site of one of the worst battles during the 2001 insurgency.