The Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management, Cvetan Tripunovski, asked the Prosecutor's Office to open an investigation against two companies for, as he said, "illegal taking of subsidies of thousands of euros".

According to Tripunovski, it is about AREKSPORT DOOEL Import-Export from Strumica which, as he said, illegally took about 30 million denars in subsidies and about SSO Ilinden which received over 19 million denars.

At a press conference, Tripunovski called on the Public Prosecutor's Office to immediately open an investigation, noting that these two cases are part of a total of five that are currently being worked on.

- From today, nothing will be the same. We begin by publishing all the suspicious cases and affairs from the previous leadership of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management and Ljupco Nikolovski as the then minister. The people, in addition to seeing how Nikolovski worked, today will also have the opportunity to hear what happened in the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management for the past seven years and how certain legal entities took state money outside of all procedures and regulations, Tripunovski said.

As he explained, from 2019 to 2022, 19 contracts were concluded with AREKSPORT DOOEL Import-Export for a total area of ​​1 hectares.

- After the inspection carried out by the State Inspectorate for Agriculture, it was established that for 11 agreements with an area of ​​941 hectares, the provisions of the Agreement were not respected by the tenant and should have been terminated. Based on these contracts, the tenant from the Agency for Financial Support for Agriculture and Rural Development earned an income of 485 euros based on subsidies. In addition, the tenant had to invest over 000 million 2 thousand investment on the land in question through a business plan that he offered to the Ministry, and at the time of control by the State Inspectorate for Agriculture it was found that there was an investment of around 450 300 euros. Also, the inspectors found that the tenant did not pay the rent for 000 and 2022, which caused additional damage to the budget of 2023 euros, the minister pointed out.

He added, it was acted contrary to Article 8 and 8a of the Law on Agricultural Land and the agricultural land that was not cultivated on the basis of the concluded contracts was not recorded at all, and no measures were taken to warn, indicate or terminate the contracts. .

-AREXPORT from Strumica used agricultural land according to the Agreement, did not pay rent, did not cultivate it, and contrary to the Law used subsidies from the state, which directly damaged the Budget of the Republic of Macedonia. Precisely because the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications did not react to this violation of procedures in previous years, the question arises whether this legal entity was consciously allowed to damage the Budget of Macedonia by more than two million euros, Tripunovski said.

Regarding the second case, it was disclosed that the SSO Ilinden with the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications on 05.10.2000 concluded a lease agreement for a period of 30 years for an area of ​​1.604 hectares, while on 03.07.2005 an Annex was signed reducing the area to 1.067 hectares , to later, in 2010, re-conclude the Annex and reduce the area to 945 hectares of state agricultural land.

- In 2019, a lawsuit was initiated for unpaid rent for 2017, 2018 and 2019, and in September 2021, after the inspection of the list of debtors by the State Inspectorate for Agriculture, it was established that the tenant did not comply with the obligations arising from The agreement for the payment of rent and use of the state agricultural land, which is why the Declaration for the unilateral termination of the Agreement for the lease of the agricultural land, which has been confirmed by a final judgment from the Court of Appeal - Skopje, is brought. Although the Statement of Unilateral Termination of the Lease Agreement was issued on 28.09.2021/41/5, the Ministry did not comply with Article XNUMXa paragraph XNUMX of the Law on Agricultural Land and did not submit a copy of the Statement of Termination of the Lease Agreement electronically to the Agency for the real estate cadastre to delete the notation of the Lease Agreement that the legal entity had, Tripunovski said.

According to him, due to non-execution of the legal powers and obligations by the Ministry (implementing a procedure for deletion from the Single Register of Agricultural Holdings), as well as due to non-coordination with the Agency for Financial Support of Agriculture and Rural Development, it was possible for the lessee even after the termination of The lease agreement, to be able to continue applying for subsidies.

- The agency for financial support in agriculture for the period from 2021 to 2023, for a total of three years, paid over MKD 19 million to the tenant on the basis of subsidies. Even after the termination of the Agreement, subsidies were paid to this legal entity. This opens up the dilemma of whether these omissions on the part of the institutions are a scheme to pump more money from the state budget? Also, contrary to Article 14-a of the Law on Agriculture and Rural Development, SSO Ilinden is not registered on the debtor lists while it had the right to use the contract by the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Water Management. Also, contrary to Article 15 of the same Law, the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry did not delete the Lease Agreement from the Single Register of Agricultural Holdings, the basis of which is the submission of an application for subsidies, and enabled the tenant to unjustifiably acquire over 19 million denars in subsidies, the minister emphasized.

He also pointed out that, at the same time, the Agency for Financial Support in Agriculture did not carry out a control in accordance with Article 48 of this Law and paid financial resources contrary to the provisions of Article 50, 51, 52 and 61.

- These are only two cases supported by solid evidence that confirm that the system and institutions are completely destroyed, but it also shows a dishonest and criminal operation by the previous leadership of SDSM and Nikolovski. The institutions must work in the service of the citizens, and therefore I call on the Public Prosecutor's Office to act immediately and investigate what the purpose was and why these two legal entities were allowed to receive a huge amount of money, state money, even though the Ministry and other competent institutions should have promptly react. These are solid evidence and indications of a crime committed and for this purpose appropriate reports will be submitted to the Public Prosecutor's Office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Financial Police for further investigation and complete clearing up of these two cases, said Tripunovski, according to whom no one must and may be above the law.

He announced that other cases of misuse of subsidies and budget funds will be announced very soon.

- Today, these two examples blatantly prove that the two legal entities illegally used a huge amount of money outside of the procedures, and therefore we now have a situation where farmers have unpaid subsidies because someone else had a privilege in the part of the distribution, underlined Tripunovski.