The hole is on „Pece Matičevski” street in the centre of Bitola, by the Culture Centre, right next to the National Theatre and one of the oldest schools in the country. For several days it stood marked only with plastic signage. The morning after the video - public utility crews began repairing it.

Between those two events, one thing happened: SDSM councillor Sofija Ristevska-Petruševa climbed into the hole to show how deep it was.

What the footage did

In the video posted on social media, councillor Jadranka Pavlovska walks down the street and says that in the city centre, steps away from Širok Sokak and the „Epinal” hotel, there is a hole a car has fallen into. She then points towards the spot where her colleague is standing.

„This hole is near the National Theatre and near one of the oldest schools in our country. Is this the safety the people of Bitola deserve?”, asked Ristevska-Petruševa.

The question is rhetorical and party-political. The result, however, is concrete: the machinery turned up in the morning.

What the municipality says

Bitola Municipality points out that damage to several streets is a consequence of heavy rain and that crews are working continuously. Regarding the spot by the „Pelagonka 2” complex, they say the damage had already been recorded, appropriate signage had been put up, and machinery had been engaged to determine whether the cause lay in the water supply or sewage infrastructure before repairs began.

That is neither untrue nor illogical. Before you close a hole you need to know what made it. But between „recorded” and „repaired” days passed on one of the busiest streets in the city, and the signage was plastic.

The time between the report and the digger

This is the part that is not party-political. The municipality is announcing inspections and stepped-up oversight in the evenings and at weekends. Councillors from SDSM, Poinaku, LDP and Levica are independently touring streets and posting videos of holes, exposed utility lines and damaged infrastructure.

So infrastructure oversight in Bitola is currently being carried out by opposition councillors with mobile phones. That is a system that works - it is just not the system that is paid to work.

In July a flash flood damaged parts of „Debarska” street. The rain genuinely is a cause. The question that remains is not why the hole appeared, but why it took a person climbing into it for the machinery to arrive the next morning.