COMPLETELY INCORRECT AND FABRICATED THE ALLEGATIONS THAT TIDZ CONCLUDES CONTRACTS TO THE “DETRIMENT OF THE CITIZENS”

COMPLETELY INCORRECT AND FABRICATED THE ALLEGATIONS THAT TIDZ CONCLUDES CONTRACTS TO THE “DETRIMENT OF THE CITIZENS”

The Directorate for Technological Industrial Development Zones strongly denies the allegations of the political party VMRO DPMNE presented at today’s press conference for an illegal tender for monitoring the payment of state aid.

The purpose of the agreement on “State Aid Monitoring” is to conduct a careful and detailed review of all requests for payment of state aid precisely to ensure protection of the public interest and money of citizens.

This innovation was introduced in 2021 and is performed by external auditors. Specifically, for 2021, through an open public procurement procedure, the international audit company PricewaterhouseCoopers has been hired. In the past year, a total of 720 million denars of state aid to companies were paid, and the total cost of engaging auditors is below 1% of this amount.

At the same time, we point out that according to the Law on State Aid Control, which is referred to by the political party VMRO DPMNE, the Commission for Protection of Competition controls the aid providers (institutions), and not the beneficiaries (companies). Additionally, in accordance with the Law on TIDZ and the mentioned Article 12, the records of the provided assistance are regulated, and not the control of the incurred costs of the companies.

Regarding the announced procurement procedure for 2022, it is fully in accordance with the Law on Public Procurement and, at the moment, evaluation of the received 4 (four) bids is underway. The same criteria apply for this procedure as for 2021, where PricewaterhouseCoopers hired.

Otherwise, within this agreement, a check of the current requests for payment of state aid under contracts is carried out, which in part were concluded in the period until 2017. As recently announced by the Directorate for TIDZ, in 2021 a total of 720 million denars of state aid were paid, and the total costs for the engagement to check payment requests are below 1% of this amount.

Having in mind all the above, it is clear that the Directorate for TIDZ, through the introduction of such a mechanism of control and monitoring works exclusively in protecting the interests of citizens and public funds. It remains unclear whose interests the political party VMRO DPMNE represents and why and who is bothered by the review of requests for payment of state funds.