Municipal debt rises by nearly €30 million in a year — municipalities owe over €93 million
As of June municipalities owed more than €93 million in due but unpaid obligations, and total public-institution liabilities approached €700 million.
Municipalities in North Macedonia have accumulated roughly €30 million of new debt over the past year, and their unpaid obligations rose by just over €7 million in the last three months, according to the latest quarterly figures published by the Ministry of Finance.
As of the end of June this year, municipalities had due but unpaid liabilities totaling more than €93 million; for the same period last year that figure stood at just over €64 million.
Gostivar sits at the top of the list of municipal debtors: its treasury recorded due, unpaid obligations of nearly €15 million as of June. Tetovo follows with a slightly smaller outstanding amount.
Major public-sector debtors and totals
Debt is growing among municipal public enterprises as well: their combined obligations exceeded €110 million at the end of June. The problem extends beyond local government and affects a broad range of public and state-owned entities.
Railway companies remain the largest individual debtors. MŽ Infrastructure holds the biggest single debt, with liabilities of more than €90 million, while MŽ Transport carries a somewhat smaller amount. Among the top five debtors is the largest electricity producer, ESM, with due but unpaid obligations of over €33 million; the list also includes SOZR at the Clinical Centre.
Nearly all municipalities, public enterprises, schools and even some ministries — and the development bank — appear on the long list of debtors. In total, by the end of June the public institutions had piled up almost €700 million of debt, and that total grew by more than €17 million in just three months.
The Fiscal Council previously recommended that the debt of public institutions and enterprises be included in public debt calculations following EU methodology, warning that doing so would push public debt toward 62% of GDP. During the previous government municipalities received more than €50 million to cover outstanding obligations, and privatization of certain state institutions was discussed. The current government, using funds from a Hungarian loan that was publicly linked to a forthcoming investigation, allocated €250 million to municipalities for capital projects — yet financial strains at local and public enterprises have not eased.
Photo: press material from the event
