Embattled Government official Lidija Dimova, who runs the agency tasked with managing European student programs in Macedonia, issued a joint statement with Zoran Zlatkovski, the owner of a hair salon and an NGO group who received 270,000 EUR in educational grants.
Dimova is facing calls to resign and an investigation after approving the payment to Zlatkovski, who is apparently an associate of hers from the time when she was also a leftist NGO activist. Dimova and Zlatkovski insist that the payment was approved to the NGO group Zlatkovski manages, not the hair salon which is registered at the same location.
The National Agency did not fund a hair salon, even though that is also allowed under the law and was done in the past, but the “Values of European knowledge” association, registered separately, which by some coincidence shares the location with the hair salon. The Erasmus+ projects are funded under strict supervision from Brussels and are approved at several levels, after evaluations from experts and the Education Ministry, Dimova said, accusing the A1on news site of misinforming the public about her.
This, and a number of other suspicious contracts and purchases of luxury vehicles led to calls for her resignation.
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