The state will pay 60 million euros for 150 new electric buses - 57 million for the vehicles and three million for the charging stations. A new investigation by the Center for Civil Communications (CCC) shows the buses will carry 66 passengers: 20 fewer than the buses the City of Skopje bought last time, and 30 fewer than the ones donated by the European Union.

From rivals to partners

The procurement was run three times over 15 months. In the second tender, Hungary's Ikarus Electric and China's Zhongtong Bus Holding bid as competitors. In the third they submitted a joint bid - and won. The winning consortium also includes EVN Macedonia as subcontractor for the charging stations, while the chargers will be made by the German subsidiary of China's Sungrow Power Supply.

According to the CCC, every time the tender was cancelled, bidders learned their competitors' prices and offers, which raised the risk of coordination between them. The winning bid was not the lowest - it was chosen after two cheaper bids were rejected. "The combination of repeated tendering, changing conditions, a shifting line-up of bidders and the lack of any explanation for the changes to the bus and charger specifications creates an increased risk of favouritism and restricted competition," the CCC says. The Ministry of Transport, it adds, did not provide the documents it requested, including the analysis used to justify changing the tender documentation.

The ministry replied that the procedure was public, transparent and in line with the Public Procurement Law, and that an electronic auction delivered a unit price of 321,958 euros per bus excluding VAT. According to its specifications, the vehicles will have at least 33 seats and a total capacity of 67 passengers. As a fair comparison, it points to Zagreb, which bought 62 electric buses for 56.8 million euros.

Zagreb is an interesting comparison, but it does not answer the question. If the procedure was so transparent, why were the documents not given to the civil society organisation that asked for them? Transparency that exists only in a press release and not in the archive is not transparency.

A sports hall at double the price, a pitch that isn't there

The CCC looked at two more cases. The original contract for the Jackson sports hall in Shtip was worth about 1.1 million euros, with a legal cap of 20 percent, or about 220,000 euros, on additional and unforeseen works. Instead of an annex, the Municipality of Shtip launched a new tender for "additional and unforeseen works" worth about 1.25 million euros including VAT - more than the original contract itself. Only one bid came in, from the company already building the hall, Sandra Inzenering.

The third case is the football pitch in Chegrane. The March 2023 contract was worth about 112,000 euros and covered new turf, rebuilt stands, irrigation and floodlights. About 70,000 euros has been paid out. Almost three years later, according to the CCC, there is no functioning football facility on the site, work has been at a standstill since the second half of 2025, and the contract has expired in the meantime. The Ministry of Sport did not say whether it took any action over the delay.

Different institutions, the same pattern: the money goes out, oversight arrives late, and the answers never arrive at all. Skopje residents will ride in buses with fewer places, in Shtip the cost of the hall works ended up more than double the original contract, and Chegrane has a contract, a payment and an empty field. Who is going to answer for this - or will we once again wait for a civil society group to tell us what the state bought with public money?