The State Statistics Bureau (DZS) announced it will sue opposition leader Hristijan Mickoski for slander after he said that DZS officials are cooking the books and falsifying data in order to support Prime Minister Zoran Zaev’s claims of a booming economy.

DZS is a professional and independent institution whose work is constantly monitored by Eurostat, while our economic and monetary data is reviewed by the IMF. Because of these slanders, we will be filing charges against Mickoski and VMRO-DPMNE, the Bureau said in a press release.

Mickoski warned DZS officials not to succumb to the pressure to manipulate data and portray tne economy as better than it really is, warning that any such moves influence Macedonia’s trustworthiness in the eyes of number of international organizations, and that there will be accountability following the elections.