Prime Minister Zoran Zaev announced that he will put the removal of product safety director Stojko Paunovski at the agenda of the Government tomorrow. Paunovski, a personal friend of Zaev and an official of the ruling SDSM party, refused to admit three dozen ethnic Albanian “diversity hires” in his DPI agency, saying they are unqualified and not needed. Albanian officials in the Government, mainly Zaev’s First Deputy Prime Minister Artan Grubi, protested the decision and demand Paunovski’s removal.

I will not allow that laws are violated, even though Paunovski is my friend. We will also hear the arguments from the DPI inspectors, Zaev said, adding that he will meet with a delegation from the agency, where 90 percent of the employees signed a petition demanding that Paunovski remains as director.

The employees were initially hired through a program to increase the percentage of ethnic Albanians in the public sector – about 1,200 of them were left without actual job assignments, some of them for over a decade. The practice is being phased out now and these “no-show” employees are being transferred to various public institutions.