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Macedonia Prosecutors Launch Four New Graft Probes
Macedonia's Special Prosecution launched four new investigations into suspected financial crimes, with alleged perpetrators including a former assistant minister and two pro-government news editors.
The Special Prosecution, SJO, which is tasked with probing high-level wrongdoing in Macedonia, launched the four new investigations at a press conference on Thursday.
In the cases that raised most public interest, codenamed "Total" and "Tifani", the SJO suspects two pro-government TV news presenters, Dragan Pavlovic and Ivona Talevska, of tax evasion through companies they own or once managed.
In the first case, Pavlovic, who is the editor-in-chief at the national Sitel TV, is suspected of evading paying a total of 120,000 euros in taxes for the marketing firms Total Marketing, Total Media Centar and Mediamaks, of which he is either the current or former manager.
The SJO said that in addition to this, Pavlovic is under suspicion of evading a further 60,000 euros in personal taxes.
In the second case, Talevska, the editor-in-chief of the daily newspaper Vecer is suspected of evading taxes amounting to 37,000 euros for the companies Smart Centar and Smart Group, which she runs or once ran.
Taleska, as manager of these firms, is additionally suspected of evading paying personal taxes of over 16,000 euros.
The prosecution believes that for several years, the two suspects have used company funds for personal purchases of luxury goods like expensive watches, furniture and other personal items, falsely declaring them as company expenses which are subject to tax allowances.
Some of the companies are no longer active.
BIRN tried contacting Pavlovic and Talevska for comment. Pavlovic was not available while Talevska asked for the questions to be sent in a written form, via SMS, but failed to reply.
The "Trista" ("300") and "Tabla" ("Blackboard") cases
In the third case condemned "Trista", a former assistant Interior Minister , whose name was not disclosed, is suspected of multiple abuses of office and breaking of the law on public procurements several times during a series of procurements of some 300 vehicles for the police, and later during the signing of several contracts for their maintenance.
These procurements took place between 2008 and 2012, the SJO said.
The former assistant minister is suspected of awarding the tenders to car dealership companies despite knowing that their offers were not the highest ones, thus costing the national budget some 450,000 euros.
In the fourth case codenamed, "Tabla", an elementary school principal from the village of Zajas, near the town of Kicevo,is suspected of making an illegal direct contract worth 200,000 euros with the firm Bauprof for the construction of a new school in the village of Gorno Strogomiste, avoiding the necessary tendering procedure.
At the start of the press conference, some media crews lowered their cameras and left the conference hall in a sign of protest against what they said was the SJO's pressure on media outlets – a reference to the two TV presenters under investigation.
Prosecutor Lence Ristoska rebuffed the claims, insisting that if some of the suspects were people linked to the media sector, that does not mean that the media outlets themselves have been targeted.
The SJO, which was formed in 2015 to investigate high level crime, also announced that it will soon start filing indictments in another previously opened case codenamed "Transporter".
In this case, which was opened in April 2016, the mayor of the town of Bitola, Vladimir Taleski, is suspected of the misuse of 360,000 euros of budget money that was transferred to the municipality of Bitola to pay for the bus transport of pupils for two school years.
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