One of the operating principles behind the Special Prosecutor’s Office was that this group of prosecutors, plucked from the OJO/PPO office, will be paid much more than their counterparts, to ensure that they won’t be bought and can go after powerful politicians and businessmen.
The idea failed spectacularly, as the head of the SPO Katica Janeva was dismissed yesterday, after being charged with abuse of office and corruption. She is suspected of extorting millions from the businessmen whose prosecution she ordered.

As the ruling SDSM party is fighting to preserve as much of Janeva’s team as possible, VMRO-DPMNE official Antonio Milososki published the salaries the SPO staff was receiving.

Employees with university education, on average, collected 80.000 denars (1.300 EUR) in pay, hardship bonus and due to a dubious clause for “protecting secrets”. Janeva’s assistant prosecutors, o nthe other hand, were paid between 220 and 260 thousand denars (4.000 EUR), Milososki said.

Janeva’s assistants were paid 10 tens times the average salary in Macedonia. Still, this was not enough to prevent the widespread abuse in the institution. On top of Janeva, three other prosecutors were interrogated for their role in the extortion. The rest are scrambling to try and preserve their jobs, and are pleading to the embassies in Skopje who were instrumental in the creation of the SPO to get them transferred back to OJO.