An audit at the Institute of Public Health uncovered a picture that's hard to read without asking where the money went. A cable for the internet network paid 15,000 euros - and nobody knows where it is today. A celebration for the centenary, lasting one hour - 50,000 euros. "How can 50,000 euros be spent in one hour?" asks director Marija Andonovska, who herself requested an additional audit from the State Audit Office.

The list goes on. Mobile telephony contracts worth 1.6 million denars - double what was planned. Fixed telephony 1.1 million denars - double again. Illegal salary top-ups, missing documentation for computers, laptops and phones that were handed out. "We didn't find a single thing done legally or by the rules," says Andonovska.

The picture of the account balance is devastating. When the new management arrived, the institute had zero denars in its account. Today, they claim, it holds around 150 million denars, with another 50 million in uncollected receivables. At the same time, hospitality expenses were cut from 500,000 denars to zero.

But the most dangerous part isn't financial. The audit found that there was no complete record of the vaccines used and that key health reports were late - and that's no longer a question of money, but of public health. When the institution that's supposed to guard the nation's health doesn't know how many vaccines it used, the problem isn't accounting, it's existential.

The case has been reported to the relevant authorities, including the anti-corruption department. There are no concrete outcomes yet - the documentation is vast. But the question the citizen carries is simpler than any audit: if a one-hour celebration costs 50,000 euros, how much did the things cost that nobody audited for years?