New leaked documents show that Healthcare Minister Venko Filipce was preparing to pay 12.5 million EUR for the Chinese coronavirus vaccines.

The leaked document, dated from January 2021 and revealed through a picture apparently taken from a screen, shows that the purchase was about to be made through a shell company named Stabri. Filipce tried to insert the company into the deal, but the Chinese side noticed that it is a purpose made, off-shore registered company and withdrew from the deal.

Another issue being raised by the latest leak is the price. Filipce announced that he intends to purchase 200,000 vaccines from China. If so, then the price would be over 60 dollars per dose. That is twice what other countries are paying for Sinopharm vaccines.

News outlets approached the Healthcare Ministry to clarify the latest leak – whether it is authentic and more importantly, whether the price was supposed to be for 200,000 doses – enough for 100,000 people, or if Filipce meant to purchase 400,000 vaccines for 200,000 people. If it is the latter option, the price would be about the same that other countries were paying, but if the Ministry was about to pay over 60 dollars for a single dose, then it would just confirm the impression in the public that Minister Filipce was planning to use a private shell company because he intended to greatly overpay for the vaccines.

Either way, with the deal now collapsed because of Filipce’s scheming, Macedonia is faced with the threat of going an extended period of time without any vaccines.

VMRO-DPMNE official Antonio Milososki noted that the Stabri company has only three employees, meaning that it is absolutely not a suitable partner for a vital procurement contract on which much of Macedonia’s development in the near term depends. Another VMRO official, colonel Dragan Kovacki, alleged that Defense Minister Radmila Sekerinska was also involved in the corrupt scheme and has ties to the businessmen who set up the shell company. And the Albanian opposition parties, Alternative and Alliance of Albanians, today called on Filipce and Prime Minister Zoran Zaev to resign over the scandal.