Skopje Mayor Petre Silegov publicly defended the cleaning snow, under which the city will pay a million EUR to the Apolo company despite the fact that almost no snow fell so far. In defense of the contract, Silegov said that “I’m not a Nobel prize winner” to predict if snow is going to fall.

We are obligated to have a winter maintenance service. If I knew how much snow would fall ahead of time, I’d be a Nobel prize winner. I did not come up with this type of contract, Silegov said.

The contract also includes bonus pays for actually doing the work the company has been contracted to do, and this year it amounted to just 40 man-hours. It apparently does not include reimbursement to the city in case the weather conditions are such that the company does almost no actual work.