The Garbage Trucks Have Been Handed Over but Still Aren't Driving: Gjorgjievski Promises 3,300 Containers While Skopje Keeps Waiting for Clean Streets

The new garbage trucks were photographed long ago. More than a month ago they were promoted with full fanfare, for Skopje and ten other cities. Now Mayor Orce Gjorgjievski says the vehicles have been handed over to the city utility "Komunalna Higiena". On the streets, though, they're still nowhere to be seen.

"In the coming days, once the legal procedures are completed, they'll go out into the field," the mayor says. What those procedures are, and why they weren't finished before the promotion, he didn't say. By the end of the week, he announced, the first delivery of a total of 3,300 new containers should also arrive - "the biggest procurement so far".

Gjorgjievski didn't miss the chance to blame his predecessors. Skopje, he says, "lost out for too long because of the irresponsibility and sloppiness" of those before him, and the neglect is now being ended "with work and concrete deeds". He also reminds everyone that "each of us has a responsibility" to keep the city clean.

Ten months later

Citizens are entitled to a little impatience. A little over ten months have passed since Gjorgjievski was elected, and the scene around the bins is a familiar one: overflowing containers, leaks around them, a stench in the middle of summer. The quick changes promised in the campaign are, so far, visible mainly in the photos from the promotions.

New trucks and new containers are good news - if they actually start driving. But a truck sitting in a parking lot while "legal procedures" are awaited doesn't collect any garbage. Will we see them on the streets this week - or will we get one more grand ceremony first?