New witnesses to abuses in “Lepeza” disclosed, Norwegian Embassy is checking

author: Stojanka Mitreska Soldier Ilija Todev from Veles who neither has a driving license, nor has ever taken the driving test in any driving school in the country, claims to have been on the list of soldiers who received a driving license through “Lepeza”. Contrary to the case of Todev, some time ago Inbox 7 published a story about a soldier – Zoran Karadakovski from Veles, also a former...

Number of municipal employees has doubled for a decade

Overstaffing in municipalities. This is the initial conclusion of the research of the Center for Investigative Journalism SCOOP Macedonia. From a sample of 10% of the total number of municipalities in the country, for 10 years the number of employees has increased at least twice. Number of employees in a representative sample of municipalities in 2005 and 2014 Municipality Number of employees in the municipality in 2005 Number of...

Flirting with NGO-s: Same organisations receive public money every year

Author: Aleksandar Dimitrievski   The Government of RM, in accordance with legislation in the late 90’s, regularly supports associations and foundations. The allocation of a certain amount of money by government decision is made by the current as it was by the previous governments. Various support funds have been opened throughout the years. So today money is given to foundations and associations through separate ministries, municipalities and at least...

Free economic zones – shrouded in mystery

It is problematic that the government’s support in economic zones is opaque, different budget items are used, which makes it particularly difficult to determine how much money has been spent for these foreign investors, analysts say author: Natasha Stojanovska Article is originaly published on May 6, 2015 at Faktor.mk Trying to attract more foreign investments, the government not only provides customs and tax exemptions, but also offers direct state...

SCOOP on the Croatian National Television

Most striking news on most of the television stations in the region yesterday was the tragedy with the death of 14 migrants in Veles. And not just because of those killed by the train Thessaloniki – Belgrade, but also because this problem affects almost all countries in the region as well as the EU. Migrants from the Middle East and Africa have already set alarm bells in several EU...

Macedonia without forests due to personal benefit of individuals

Author: Iskra Opetceska   Employees at responsible positions in the Public Enterprise (PE) “Macedonian Forests“, branch “Babuna” Veles, break the Law on forests illegally earning thousands of Euros on the back of the state and private forest owners, says Gilbert Jacques Arsov, owner of 42 hectares of land  with 700 cubic meters of trees in the area of Veles village Vetersko. “One of the biggest problems is issue slips....

School gyms: promises stronger than realization

author: Zaklina Hadzi-Zafirova Grey walls and overgrown grass. This is the picture to which residents of Skopje suburb Cento have already got used to while passing by the primary school “Krste Misirkov”, where ten years ago a new school gym was supposed to be built. But instead of a new building, which was announced by all previous governments, pupils and children of this suburb have to be satisfied with...

Zaklina Hadzi-Zafirova of SCOOP Macedonia receives a certificate of recognition for investigation on a topic of exceptional public interest

Today MIM awarded the prizes from the competition “Nikola Mladenov” for best investigative stories in 2014. First-prize winner is Ljubisha Arsic for the series of investigative articles on “Secret passport factory” published in the weekly “Fokus”. Second-prize winner is Sonja Kolevska-Delevska for the series of investigative articles on “Raping juveniles in the correctional center “Tetovo”, published in the daily newspaper “Vest”. Third-prize winners are journalists Vlado Apostolov, Saska Cvetkovska...