The Gostivar public utility „Komunalec” has someone to run it again. Mayor Valjbon Limani appointed Almir Dauti as acting director - replacing the director who was detained on 21 July and is now in custody.

Dauti is a 49-year-old economics graduate with more than 15 years in the company, the last seven of them as head of the commercial department. The mandate is temporary - Limani said openly that he had asked the heads of department to pick one of their own to hold the post „for the next two months”.

Why the company was left without a director

Former director Arta Asani, along with two other „Komunalec” managers - Leon Uredini and Vaedine Dervisi - are suspected of serious offences against the environment. According to the investigation, they ordered submersible pumps to be placed in a channel of contaminated surface water near the overflow chamber, which led to the poisoning of the town's water supply and an outbreak of enterocolitis. The offence carries four to twenty years in prison.

So this is not a routine personnel decision. This is a company left without a management structure because its leadership is in custody over poisoning the very thing the company exists to protect - the drinking water of an entire town.

Two months, and then what

Limani justified the appointment by noting that the company also carries out other activities and needs someone to hold the post. Fair enough. A utility cannot function without a signature.

But the phrase „for the next two months” also reveals what was left unsaid: nobody knows what the legal fate of the previous management will be, or when and how a permanent solution will be decided. Dauti comes from inside the house - 15 years there, seven of them in management. That is an advantage in knowing the system. It is also a question: how far inside a system should you go to find the person who is meant to clean it up?

The people of Gostivar, meanwhile, still cannot drink water from the tap.