Financial Responsibility for New Buses Shifts to Ministry of Finance
Neither the Public Transport Company of Skopje nor the City of Skopje will cover the annual payment for the new low-floor gas buses acquired by former mayor Petre Shilegov. Instead, this responsibility will fall to the Ministry of Finance, as part of the budget rebalancing. Both the public enterprise and the city officials have stated that they lack sufficient funds for the payment, prompting the Ministry of Finance to step in as the ultimate guarantor for obligations to the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, from which the loan was secured.
The procurement involves 33 buses purchased in 2022 during Shilegov’s administration under an agreement with the EBRD. The annual payment amounts to 1 million euros, which has been allocated through the budget rebalancing. “We are not financially capable; this is a substantial sum that we cannot provide. Additionally, there are numerous outstanding receivables from the past period, and revenues have drastically decreased,” stated Draghi Kushovski, the director of the Public Transport Company, during an interview on Sitel news.
