"Transparency is not only an obligation, but also the basis of the plan for building a modern and democratic state. Our tendency is to create conditions for independent journalism and cooperation. Transparency is not a one-way process. We as a Government are prepared to work openly and responsibly. But all of you are also crucial. I call on you to be active, ask questions, seek answers, give recommendations – the power is yours."

This is what Prime Minister Hristijan Mickoski said at a recent conference, sending a message to the media.

Apart from what the Prime Minister says, it is written in black and white that "every institution will respect the Law on Free Access to Public Information."
This is what was written in VMRO-DPMNE's Platform #1198, with which they convinced citizens before the elections that they were the right party that should hold power in Macedonia and on which the government's program is based.

And it is good that the Prime Minister encourages us as media to be active, to ask questions and seek answers, but the problem is that – what we get in return. At least some of us. So, “silence” was the response from the Government to the question of “Sloboden Pechat” (and two or three other media outlets) back in August last year, who the Prime Minister’s external advisors are and how much they receive each month. The Government did not dare to send any response, not even that they could not answer us, as if it were a strictly guarded state secret. And since the proclaimed Platform states that “every institution will respect the Law on Free Access to Public Information”, the assumption was that the Government would be the first in the line of those who respect the Law.

But, look, we were wrong.

The Government clearly does not accept the decision of the Agency for Free Access to Public Information, nor the decision on the appeal. The response, even after five months, remained "silent" as if the question had not been asked at all and as if the Agency, which, by the way, is not a state agency, had not been involved at all.

And while government officials, starting with the prime minister, through the ministers, and onward, are full of "transparency" to differentiate themselves from those who, right, "hostilely stole from the people," they do not tell the same people who they pay for everything and how much from the people's money.

Why are the Prime Minister's external advisors a secret, when their fees are paid from the budget to which we all contribute, that is, they are paid from our money, no matter how trite this sentence may seem. On the other hand, citizens and the public have the right to know who advises the Prime Minister on policies that affect everyone. Only in this way will all dilemmas and doubts about the existence, at the very least, of cronyism in their hiring be removed.

And if a few hadn't boasted themselves on social media, emphasizing the honor and gratitude to the prime minister for recognizing their commitment, as well as (not all of them) "gratitude to God for the opportunity to serve my people, country and all citizens in this way," we wouldn't have known any of the several names who are due, well, up to 90 thousand denars per month in budget money. That is probably sufficient compensation for, as the Government responded to another media outlet, "the several hard-working external advisors, who are professors, scientists, prominent businessmen and experts who possess special knowledge and experience in the areas of long-term strategic planning, in the economic, political system and human resources and sustainable development." As a reminder, among those few with special knowledge and experience, which no one is trying to dispute, are the names of university professors Aleksandar Spasenovski and Lazar Jovevski, doctor Igor Nikolov, Sasho Markovski from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Stole Pandov, otherwise the son of the director of the Sanctions Enforcement Administration, Aleksandar Pandov. Their special knowledge and experience are certainly worth all the money they receive, and we should all see the benefits of them.

Just don't let it be like the air of transparency.

"We want to be as transparent as possible, maybe sometimes we fail, the public will forgive us, but we have honest intentions and we want to do something that has never been done before, something new, and I hope that we are at least partially successful," the Prime Minister said.

And thus spoke Zarathustra to the people: It is time for man to correct his aim. It is time for man to plant the germ of his greatest hope ("Thus Spoke Zarathustra", Friedrich Nietzsche).