Demir Kapija is not drinking tap water. Nor cooking with it. The ban is total and applies until further notice.

And the reason for the ban is not that the water is contaminated. The reason is that two state institutions tested the same water and got opposite results.

The sample taken on Monday, analysed by the Institute of Public Health in Skopje, showed the water did not meet the conditions set out in the Drinking Water Regulation. The sample taken on Tuesday from the same measuring point, analysed by the Centre for Public Health in Veles, showed the water did meet them.

One measuring point, two accredited laboratories - and conclusions that cancel each other out. These are not two different taps at opposite ends of town; the samples were taken from the same spot, one day apart.

The ban is the right decision. That is not in dispute

The public utility Boshava did what it should - it imposed a ban until the picture is clear. When you are not sure whether water is safe, you ban it and you wait. A super-analysis to establish the real situation is scheduled for Monday.

Which means a whole town will be buying bottled water for a week, waiting for a third laboratory to tell them what the first two said.

What the director says

The acting director of Boshava, Petar Jovanov, urged that the case not be used for day-to-day political points and that no additional fear be created among citizens.

"Situations like this are not something happening for the first time, and the most important thing is to act responsibly and in line with professionally established procedures," he said.

As for the causes - Jovanov says they cannot be determined in advance: "There are several possible factors, including the possibility of contamination during the sampling itself, the transport or the processing of the sample, but at the same time the possibility that the problem originates in the water supply system itself cannot be ruled out."

That is a correct, professional answer. And that is exactly why it is worrying.

Neither possible explanation is harmless

Read what that sentence actually means. Either the water system has a problem - or the way samples are taken, transported and processed has a problem.

If it is the second, then the question does not concern Demir Kapija alone. Every town in the country relies on the same type of periodic analyses, taken by the same type of crews, transported under the same protocol. The sample that "may have been contaminated during collection" in Demir Kapija is the same procedure that every month confirms the water somewhere else is fine.

Jovanov also points to a difference in type: Monday's analysis, carried out by the Skopje institute, is one of those done periodically, while the second, from the Veles centre, is part of routine sampling in line with the plan and the protocols set according to population size.

So we have two control systems that do not produce the same result for the same water. That is not a political question - it is a technical one, and the answer is needed by the whole country, not just one town.

Demir Kapija will get its result on Monday. The question left open is whether anyone will compare the two protocols - or whether we will wait for the next town where the numbers do not match.