All official vehicles of the City of Skopje and its public enterprises are fitted with GPS units and tracked through a monitoring centre in real time. You can see where a vehicle is, which route it is taking, at what speed, how long it has been moving and how much fuel it is burning. On top of that, special probes monitor the fuel level in the tank.

Mayor Orce Gjorgjievski put the rule in a single sentence: every vehicle, every kilometre and every litre of fuel must have a justification.

Half a million euros on fuel, in six months

The most concrete figure he gave concerns the public transport company JSP. In the first six months of this year the company recorded savings of half a million euros on fuel compared with the same period last year - and that with 50 additional vehicles brought into the system.

That is the detail carrying the whole story. More vehicles, less fuel burned. If the number is accurate - and it comes from the city itself, so it deserves scrutiny from the Council rather than applause - then the difference was not the technology. The difference was that previously nobody was looking.

The question that asks itself

A fuel probe is not expensive technology. A GPS unit in a vehicle is not a 2026 innovation. Neither requires a new law, European funds or a feasibility study.

So the question is not how it was introduced now. The question is why half a million euros a year was leaking away with nobody noticing, and more precisely - for how many years it was leaking.

Gjorgjievski also points out that he does not use an official car, arrives in his own vehicle and pays for the fuel himself, while the car used by previous mayors has been placed at the city's disposal. That is symbolism and it works as symbolism.

The number, though, is not symbolism. Half a million euros is streets, parks, school desks. Gjorgjievski says that is exactly where the saved funds should end up.

Until then, the only thing a citizen can verify is whether next year brings a second report with a second figure - or whether the saving remains a single announcement from August 2026.