The Lider news site is publishing documents from the TE-TO bankruptcy scandal, in which the large, Russian owned gas fired energy plant received a tax write-off by the Zaev Government worth 24 million EUR. The bankruptcy allowed TE-TO to default on additional 28 million EUR in debt to the Toplifikacija company, which is the co-owner of TE-TO, and it exited the bankruptcy process in one day – as soon as the debts were striken off the books.
Lider reports that the bankruptcy request TE-TO filed with the court cited as reason for its default the exclusive contract it had signed for the sale of the electric energy produced. TE-TO claimed that it is unable to operate profitably since it can only work through one company, and the price is set through an exclusive indexing method.
This company is EDS, and until 2018 it was owned by Koco Angusev, who yesterday resigned as Deputy Prime Minister in the Zaev Government. This means that a member of the Government which approved the TE-TO tax debt write-off had profited from the sale of the energy produced in the Russian owned gas plant.
Angusev sold EDS to the Greek owned public energy DEI company at the height of the name issue negotiations between Macedonia and Greece, in a move which prompted calls for an anti-corruption investigation in both countries. A few weeks ago Angusev announced he is resigning regardless of the outcome of the April 2020 early general elections, and yesterday he was removed from the Government and replaced with leftist activist Mila Carovska.