Karpoš Mayor Sotir Lukrovski presented a report on the projects completed and launched since he took office. An almost identical overview also reached the media as a VMRO-DPMNE press release, announcing a "new investment cycle" in the municipality.

The numbers, taken on their own, are concrete. More than 3,500 cubic metres of accumulated material have been cleared from problem spots, and the removal of more than 150 wrecked vehicles has freed up just as many parking spaces. Reconstruction of Džumajska and Trifun Buzev streets is finished, part of Branislav Nušić Street has been rebuilt, and work on Jurij Gagarin Street in Kozle is under way. In Dolno Nerezi the water network is being rebuilt to improve water pressure, and construction of several streets has begun in Bardovci. Children's playgrounds and sports grounds have been renovated at a number of locations too.

Coming next, according to the announcement, is the Prolet 2 kindergarten in Kozle, with room for 130 children, and two new multi-purpose sports halls: one is being built at the Dimo Hadži Dimov primary school in Vlae, covering around 1,400 square metres, while the foundation stone for the other has been laid at the Bratstvo primary school. Also on the list is a "mega-park" with new green spaces. How much it will cost, where exactly it will be and when it will be finished - the published information doesn't say.

None of this is bad for the people of Karpoš. Quite the opposite. The problem is the return address. Kindergartens, streets and sports halls are built with citizens' money, through the municipal budget, not from a party treasury. When a municipality's progress report arrives as a party press release, citizens have every right to ask: who is building the kindergarten - the municipality or the party?

Karpoš deserves a new kindergarten, new halls and better streets. It also deserves a report signed by the municipality, with deadlines and amounts - not slogans about "concrete projects and visible results".