The inhabitants of the village of Slupchane in the Lipkovo region didn’t allow the EVN (a private electricity distribution company) teams to work on the network again, setting absurd demands, the company informed.

The resistance, which began almost a month ago, but was temporarily resolved by the mediation of the Minister of Economy Kreshnik Bekteshi, continued on Wednesday. The police were present but did not intervene.

To make it clear what they are dealing with, EVN publicized the inhabitants’ demands: EVN should cancel all their previous debts – that amount to several thousand euros per household. Furthermore, EVN should install the new automated gauges at its own expense, and last, but not least, the company should never bill them more than MKD 3,000 (€50) per month, regardless of how much electricity they use!

They have many more similar demands in violation of the positive laws and regulations, like complete exemption of religious objects from paying, EVN informs.

The total amount of paid bills in Slupchane is 20% – the others either don’t pay or are illegally connected. This means enormous losses for the company, which is why they tried to install automated gauges in the households, which the inhabitants refuse for years. Many defects led to frequent outages, but the inhabitants nevertheless banned the entrance for the EVN teams.  On July 5, the inhabitants caused a serious defect on the network while trying to illegally connect to it. The defect, which also affected the surrounding villages, was mended the next day, but the illegal connecting and the outages continue, as does the resistance, keeping other villages hostage.