The contract for 150 electric buses has been signed. The first vehicles are due by the end of this year, and all 150 within 18 months. Of those, 100 are for the City of Skopje and 50 for other towns. The estimated value of the procurement is around 51 million euros.

The contract was signed with the Hungarian company Ikarus. The tender was run by the Ministry of Transport and Communications and this is the third attempt - the first two tenders were cancelled.

That is the part the press releases leave out

Two cancellations are not a technical formality. Each one means months lost, a repeated procedure, and another winter and summer cycle in which Skopje drove with what it had. For a city that has had a problem with the number of roadworthy buses for years, that is a cost paid directly by the passengers waiting at the stops.

Nobody publicly explained why the first two tenders fell through. That is the question which, now that the procedure has finally concluded, will easily get lost in the satisfaction of having a signature.

The promises

Mayor Orce Gjorgjievski said he had already seen the buses and called them ultra-modern. "Our teams are already working at the two locations, Avtokomanda and Gjorche Petrov, where the chargers for the electric buses will be installed," he said at the council session.

Transport Minister Aleksandar Nikoloski said a month ago, when the tender concluded, that the first 30 buses would arrive by the end of December.

Gjorgjievski also announced that a tender for the design and construction of the Bus Rapid Transit route will be published in the coming week.

The chargers are the real test

An electric bus without charging infrastructure is an expensive bus standing still. That is why the sentence about Avtokomanda and Gjorche Petrov matters more than the contract itself. If the chargers are not ready when the first delivery lands, 30 new vehicles will be waiting just as the tenders waited.

The deadlines are clear: the first by the end of December, all 150 within 18 months. Those are dates against which delivery can actually be checked. A rare thing in our public procurement - and precisely why it is worth remembering.