„We have valid parking permits and we can't even get back to our own homes” - that is how Centar residents describe the chaos surrounding the new tariff schedule from POC, Skopje's public parking company. People are furious: valid permits suddenly stopped working, forcing renewals, and in the meantime residents can't reach their own front doors.

The numbers behind the anger are concrete. Councillor Katerina Kostadinova of VMRO-DPMNE laid it out: „For three vehicles registered at the same address of a single family property, the annual parking fee would reach 24,000 denars, plus 18,000 for each additional vehicle.” The new system charges by the number of vehicles at one address rather than per owner - meaning a three-person household with three cars in front of their own house pays around 24,000 denars a year.

This is no fringe grievance. Over 1,200 residents have signed a petition demanding the new tariffs be scrapped and a public debate held. Residents describe the hike as a „legal racket,” arguing they now have to pay for the pavement and the street in front of their own homes, on top of their utility bills. It's hard to fault them for the wording.

VMRO-DPMNE is announcing an initiative to bring back the old tariff schedule, framing it as freeing residents from the „harmful policies of Gerasimovski and the SDS.” Party rhetoric aside, the fact remains: both the city and POC have gone more than 10 days without answering reporters' questions about whether they even considered the residents' demands. When an institution stays silent while citizens sign petitions, the silence itself is an answer - just not the one people are asking for.