The public utility Komunalna Higiena Skopje announced that its crews carry out manual washing of the micro-locations where communal waste bins are placed, every day, in all Skopje municipalities. The washing mostly takes place late in the evening, after the bins are emptied.

The statement continues: the utility also runs continuous machine washing of Skopje's boulevards and streets with water tankers, and ahead of the Assumption holiday its crews washed the entire area in front of the Church of the Nativity of the Holy Mother of God in the city centre, as well as the surroundings and courtyard of the Assumption Monastery in the Matka canyon.

The statement versus social media

The problem with the word "daily" is that anyone who steps out of their building can check it.

While the utility was publicising its activity, residents of Skopje were posting photographs of the bins in front of their buildings. One of the complaints reads like this:

"In front of buildings 30-28 on Vidoe Smilevski Bato street, the sanitation workers have created a stinking little pool that is a potential bomb for all kinds of infection, it stinks for kilometres. That side street has not been cleaned since Ivica's time. I ask the municipality's sanitation service to do something; if you have an inspector, let him come out."

"Since Ivica's time" means since an Aerodrom mayor three terms ago. That is a unit of measurement which says more than any statistic on washing frequency.

Both things can be true at once

This is not about the utility lying outright. The workers really do wash micro-locations at night - that is documented and visible on the ground. The church courtyards really were washed before the holiday.

The difference is between "it gets washed" and "it gets washed daily, everywhere". The first claim is true. The second does not survive the test of your own nose, in any Skopje neighbourhood, on any August afternoon.

And there lies the real question, which no statement has opened: how many micro-locations does Skopje have, how many crews go out at night, and how many of those locations actually get washed in 24 hours. Those are three numbers the utility knows. Publish them and the debate ends immediately - one way or the other.

The holiday as a schedule

There is also a pattern Macedonia recognises without effort. The washing in front of the churches happened right before a major religious holiday, when there are people watching and something to announce.

That is not bad in itself - holiday locations really should be clean. But when hygiene is scheduled by the calendar of events instead of the calendar of needs, the side street behind buildings 28 and 30 has no day in the year that will put it on the list.