Zhernovski: “Hungarian loan” raises suspicions of crime, who will be held accountable?

Andrej Zhernovski, member and international secretary of SDSM, reacted after yesterday’s announcement by Hungarian authorities that a criminal investigation has been opened into suspicions of misuse at “Eximbank”, a state-owned bank. Also part of the investigation is the one billion euro loan given to Macedonia.

According to Zhernovski, the issue has now gone beyond the claims raised by SDSM as an opposition party and has turned into a subject of police work.

“Even after the account of the ‘successful borrowing’, some questions remained unanswered: Who negotiated the loan? Who decided which projects would be selected? Where did the funds end up? Did the money come from China? Which companies benefited? And what information did the government of the country have specifically about this entire deal? You can present the taking of one billion euros as an achievement. But when a criminal investigation is opened for that same billion, the time for boasting ends and the time for giving explanations before the prosecutor’s office begins.”

“If everything is in order, so much the better. Then publish all documents and enable the public to examine them. Macedonia is not anyone’s private property, and one billion euros of public debt is not an ‘Orban gift’. This amount will be repaid by our citizens, our children, and generations after them. However, when suspicions of crime arise over one billion euros, the issue is no longer limited to just the question ‘where is the money?’. One must also ask who will be held accountable,” Zhernovski stated.