Welcome to Macedonia, here is your ticket.
Macedonia’s Government has turned the country into a feudal society where citizens are taxed by way of fees, fines, penalties in addition to the taxes. Taking advantage of residents’ zombie-like inability to protest, the Government has allowed a private utility company to hike the electricity prices 11 times in less than three years. In addition, the alleged “Regulatory” Commission which doesn’t regulate anything, allowed EVN to add and make things up on the statements, like the infamous “transport” fee as if the company brings electricity to the homes in buckets. The irony of course is the fact many of the utility polls are in fact owned by residents decades ago. The Government who is in bed with EVN silently watches the raping of its population through massive utility bills, often being 50% of the salary of a typical household particularly in the winter months. For comparison, the average EU electric bill is roughly 7-10% of the salary of a EU citizen.
A manufactured garbage crisis saw the residents of the Macedonian capital choking on garbage, infestation and diseases thanks to a political game being played between the then mayor D.A. and the ruling party who was at odds with the Skopje mayor. As a result, for four months in and around the capital, garbage was not being collected from people’s homes. But guess what happened with the garbage collection utility bills? They kept sending bills as if the garbage was being collected!? It’s the same if you go grocery shopping, you pay for your things and leave the store without your items. You pay for a service, but you are not getting the service. Good luck suing them, it would be the same as suing the mafia where the head mobster is your judge.
Care to Park?
The entirety of the Macedonian capital has been turned into one large parking lot. It doesn’t matter where you go, you need to pay to park. There are streets with non existing parking spots, you literally cannot park anywhere, but you need to pay there too. It cost anywhere from 0.5 to 2.5 euros per hour to park your vehicles, cost is dependent on location. You’d like to drink a cup of coffee? That will be 2 euros for the coffee and 1 euro for the parking, you tend to wrap up your conversations with friends quickly and are always looking at your watch.
During a visit to Greece I spoke to a German tourist who drove through Macedonia. Once he found out where I was from his first words were “You have a lot of pay tolls and low quality highways for the number of pay-tolls”. Relax buddy, I tried to explain to him that the pay-tolls were a vital contributor to the Macedonian economy. “Yes, but I drove from Germany and encountered more pay-tolls in Macedonia than driving through most of Europe.” Clearly, the German has a lot to learn how fee-based economy works.
That’s how we get money, in fact, the geniuses are planning on setting up more pay-tolls, what is the current number, 6 so far to get to Greece?
But how do we get people to pay some sort of tolls within the city? Yes, lets do what we always do best. Take what’s the worst thing in a carefully selected woke “western” country and implement the same at home and make sure to make it much worse, but whatever is positive and civil in the West, ignore that part.
Welcome to “$af€ City”
Considering what was decided, it’s safe to determine that this is the conversation at the Government session when deciding on the “Safe City” project: Lets set up cameras all over the city, and print thousands of tickets, fines, penalties, why not take their cars and licenses too because then they will need to spend money to get new licenses. You mean like what we do when we keep changing the names of streets every few years so people have to pay for new ID, DLs, documents etc.?
Exactly! We’ll make at least 30,000 euros every day with Safe City. We can fine them for speeding, not wearing seatbelts, reaching for a phone, talking on the phone, unregistered vehicle, being on your way to register a vehicle, leaving your car to drop your kid at school… and remember, we will market this as “we care for your safety”! Just think of the money that will be coming in!
But what if residents say “Why don’t you have more police patrolling the cities instead of relaxing in casinos? You can’t see a police car for months”. Just keep saying that this is for your safety, it’s always for your safety, they will buy it.
It’s a fear fee-based safety economy. We learned something from NED and Konrad Adenauer after all, remember those spaghetti sessions in Ohrid!
Safe City is the latest money grabbing project by the Macedonian Government. There is never a project where the Macedonian citizens benefit from something. There is never a service or a utility that makes their life easier, or simplifies a procedure, or grants some sort of a privilege. Anything, or any project that’s positive for the citizens cannot be done because a) either takes years to do, or b) there is simply no funds for it. However, every single time there is an idea how to scam or rob the few money citizens have left, the idea is implemented within a month and funds are always available for such ideas.
And this is why there is now a trend of even wealthy Macedonians despite their obvious capacity to lead a very good life in their own country, they get the hell out of there and move to Australia, US, Canada, Scandinavia etc. Even they are fed up from all the nonsense.
Stay tuned for the latest money grabbing project and remember, it’s for your safety.
