Aerodrom Mayor Timco Mucunski said that the central Government has greatly slashed transfers from public revenue that is owed to the municipalities, especially now that the opposition VMRO-DPMNE won in the key cities in October. Mucunski said that the hike in energy prices is decimating municipal budgets.

Last year Aerodrom spent 12 million denars for electricity. This year, we expect average monthly bills of 8 million. That is about 10 percent of the total budget. It’s unbearable, we are talking about hundreds of thousands of euros a month, Mucunski said.

According to the Mayor, municipalities should receive between 9 and 10 percent of the value added tax receipts that go to the central budget. “Instead, we have a reduction in the receipts for the schools and the kindergartens, even as the budget of the Education Ministry and the Labour and Welfare Ministry went up. We need to have the Government restore the transfers to at least the levels they were at last year”, Mucunski added.