100% TRANSPARENCY - SO WHERE ARE THE CONTRACTS? ENERGY UNDER A QUESTION MARK

In her latest interview, Energy Minister Sanja Bozhinovska boasted that the Ministry had scored 100% on the Active Transparency Index. But one simple question comes up: What kind of 100% transparency is it if citizens cannot freely read the most important contracts in the energy sector? Where are the published contracts for the big energy investments? Where are the financial terms under which private companies get to use state resources? Where are the calculations of how much the state earns, and how much the private investors take home? Or, to be specific -The contract for the sale of ESM Distribution to Austria's EVN -Small hydropower plants were additionally handed to EVN to cover losses in the power distribution network, but there is no public contract -The Macedonian state kept a 10% stake in EVN, but there has been no audit for 20 years -Why are the amounts EVN charged for connecting every solar plant, wind farm and industrial facility not made public? -The Regulatory Commission's own calculations already recognise a separate category of assets received free of charge and assets financed through connection fees. Is there a case where an investor pays for a substation, hands it over to EVN, and that same substation then generates additional regulated revenue for the operator? -The audit findings on MEPSO raise serious questions about how power infrastructure in Macedonia is recorded and registered, but there are no answers. -How, and on what legal basis, does EVN enter into investments tied to the 110 kV power infrastructure? -The government approved a long-term lease of 1,344,965 square metres of state land, almost 135 hectares, for a wind farm. The project belongs to Alcazar Energy Partners, an investment group headquartered in Luxembourg, operating through the project company ŠTP VIND DOOEL Skopje - yet the contract is nowhere to be found in public -When private partners were selected in 2021 for the solar plants near Oslomej, the published bids said ESM would receive compensation equivalent to 18.51% and 18.01% of the electricity produced, valued under the agreed terms - but there is no publicly available data anywhere, except on ESM's website, which says 10%. -ESM signed a three-year contract with KEK for around 3 million tonnes of coal from Obilić at a fixed price of 24.4 euros per tonne - but were other coal supply options examined, were the final costs calculated, where are the analyses? -The Republic of Macedonia has long carried huge losses in power distribution - by plain arithmetic, 16.2%. Where are these losses created, and who pays for them? -The Energy Regulatory Commission also approves the allowed return that goes into the regulated revenue of Electricity Distribution - but then who keeps them in check?

When you publish the contracts, the financial calculations, the audits and the documents showing how the state's energy resources are managed, then we can talk about real transparency.

Transparency is not proven with 100% on some index, but with answers backed by documents, facts and figures. When every citizen can check who signed what, how much money was charged, who profited and what the state got in return, then by all means step in front of the public and say: "Yes, I am transparent!" Until then, we are not asking for percentages and praise. We are asking for answers!