VMRO-DPMNE spokesman Dimitar Arsovski accused the head of the state owned ELEM energy company Vasko Kovacevski of extorting 250.000 EUR from a company that was working on a contract with ELEM’s main power plant – REK Bitola. Earlier this week Interior Minister Nake Culev confirmed that the organized crime unit has gathered evidence about Kovacevski for his actions while he was head of REK Bitola, and has submitted it to state prosecutors.

We are talking about a well respected company that lawfully won a contract to work in REK Bitola, but was pressured to either pay 250.000 EUR in bribes, as a cut of the deal, or to step aside and let another company take over its contract. The other company that was pushing to get the deal is SV Invest, which has been used as a front for Vice Zaev, Arsovski said.

VMRO has accused the brother of the former Prime Minister Zoran Zaev of purchasing trucks and lending them to SV Invest to transport ore for REK Bitola, practically using the company as a front to get lucrative, overpaid contracts from the large publicly ran energy complex.

To make matters more interesting, the entire case and the evidence were investigated by SDSM appointed inspectors in the organized crime unit and the former head of the BJB police service Laze Velkovski. This means that the evidence is so solid that it can’t be hidden even by party appointees, Arsovski said.

Kovacevski has since been promoted by the SDSM party from head of the Bitola mine and power plant to head of the entire ELEM (ESM) company – Macedonia’s main energy producer. Arsovski accused the office of state prosecutors of ignoring this scandal and trying to protect the ruling party from its consequences.