A deputy PM who hadn't shown up for work in months, posed for photos at exotic destinations, while the government kept quiet about whether he was still drawing a salary - has finally resigned on his own. Arben Fetai, deputy prime minister for good governance, left office "with his head held high and a clear conscience." The irony that it was the "good governance" portfolio that produced a story like this could hardly be greater.

Fetai announced the resignation on social media, with messages about reform, accountability and transparency. "I had the honour and privilege of serving the state... a mission as important as it is thankless," he wrote, adding that he isn't fully satisfied with what was achieved, but that he worked to lay "healthy foundations."

The trouble is that for months the public had been asking entirely different questions - and got an answer to none of them. Where is Fetai? Is he in Macedonia or in Brussels, where he came from? Is he still drawing a salary even though he's been absent from work for months? PM Mickoski stayed silent. So did parliament deputy speaker Antonio Milososki when he was asked to have the deputy PM appear at a session for MPs' questions.

The scene in parliament was telling: SDSM MP Daniela Nikolova demanded that Fetai's presence be secured, and Milososki - didn't know what to say. Perhaps because the only available answer was awkward: according to the PM himself, Fetai had told him he doesn't see himself as part of the government he leads. A man with that stance sat in a deputy PM's chair for months.

Now, with Mickoski announcing a government reshuffle in June anyway, Fetai made the first move himself. The question that remains isn't about his "head held high" - it's about all those months in which an office existed only on paper, while a salary, premises and a seat in government stood reserved for someone who simply wasn't turning up. Who paid that bill, and why did it take so long to state the obvious?