Contracts signed with about 60 companies are being investigated by the new management of the FITR fund for innovations and technological development. The contracts, worth 3.2 million EUR, appear to be bogus, said newly appointed director of this institution Nikola Dodov. Dodov added that the previous management also left 1.3 million EUR in uncollected debts.

There is well founded suspicion that enormous funds were given for projects in violation of the law. We are now conducting a full review of the payments and the projects, Dodov said.

FITR was led by two highly politicized SDSM party officials, Jovan Despotovski and Kosta Petrov. In particular Despotovski was notorious for giving funds to companies owned by SDSM party officials or supporters, often for clearly bogus “technological innovations”.

In one example, during the Covid crisis, a company linked to the SDSM-DUI Government was receiving enormous sums of money from FITR. Its owner is linked to four other companies. Also, we had two cities in Macedonia who are leaders in terms of received funds for innovations, receiving far more than other cities per capita , said Dodov, citing other indications of fraud.