"Not a single tonne of ore, not a single percent of exports and not a single investment is worth more than a human life," Energy Minister Sanja Bozhinovska said at the Miners' Day ceremony.

It is a good sentence. The question is whether the numbers behind it back it up.

The ministry announced that 1.22 billion denars were collected in concession fees in 2025, with 78 percent of that revenue going to municipalities for infrastructure. Ten miners received awards at the event, and representatives of the mining industry and academia spoke, among them the president of the Macedonian Mining Association Dime Petreski and professor Gjorgje Dimov. A new mineral resources strategy and preparation of legislative amendments were announced.

Where that money ends up

78 percent of 1.22 billion denars means close to 950 million denars, or around 15 million euros, flows back to municipalities. That is not a small sum for local budgets - but the figure on its own says nothing. It says which direction the money travels, not what was done with it.

In mining that question is not a bookkeeping one. The municipalities receiving the concession fee are the same municipalities absorbing the consequences - dust, overloaded roads, water and tailings dumps. If that money goes back into infrastructure that the very same mining activity wears down, then the fee is compensation, not development.

Safety is measured in inspections, not in speeches

Announcing a new strategy and new legislation focused on environmental standards and worker safety is exactly what should be announced on Miners' Day. The problem is that the mining profession in this country has been hearing the same promises for decades.

The sentence that no investment is worth more than a human life gets tested in one place only - in the inspection reports. How many inspections were carried out this year, how many irregularities were found, how many proceedings were launched and how many mines operate to the standards the ministry is announcing. Those numbers were not said at the ceremony.

Ten awards for ten miners is a deserved gesture. But for those going down tomorrow, one inspector who turned up unannounced means more than one certificate handed over on a stage.