The Special Prosecutor’s Office, which was supposed to be an elite crime fighting unit which is now thoroughly disgraced with accusations of abuse of power and extortion of millions of euros, is facing unpaid bills that may cut its power. Public Prosecutor Ljubomir Joveski, who accepted a plot by disgraced Special Prosecutor Katica Janeva to de facto abandon her unit, was asked whether it will endanger the hundreds of thousands of illegal wiretaps still kept in the SPO office. Without electricity, and with unpaid bills for the guards, the evidence could be in even more danger than it was in Janeva’s hands.

Joveski said that his OJO office will make sure that the SPO, which he now considers a subordinate unit even though no law was passed to make it happen, will remain funded for bare essentials such as power. But, Joveski said that the SPO prosecutors can’t be paid, and are already owed two salaries.

We won’t allow the materials to be placed in danger. We will find a way to pay he bills. The problems is that the employees can’t receive salaries, or medical benefits, Joveski told Telma.

Under Janeva’s plan, which she put in action while detained in the Sutka prison on charges of extortion, the SPO case files are given to Joveski, who like Janeva is seen as loyal to the Zoran Zaev Government and willing to continue the campaign of persecution of the opposition VMRO-DPMNE party initiated by Janeva. But the exceptionally well paid institution and its prosecutors who have styled themselves as movie stars, are now in a financial limbo with Janeva removed from its helm and unable to sign off on their salaries. Zaev’s SDSM party and VMRO-DPMNE were unable to reach agreement on what to do with the SPO. Far from funding the institution, VMRO-DPMNE demands an expanded investigation into the role Janeva’s assistants played in her extortion racket.