Minister Spasovski earns more than Prime Minister Zaev

In October, Minister of Interior Oliver Spasovski got higher salary than Prime Minister Zaev. The data Truthmeter queried from the Government to check one of SDSM’s electoral promises concerning government’s accountability show that Minister Spasovski’s net salary in the amount of 92.299 denars is higher than Prime Minister Zaev’s salary, which amounts to 88.161 denars, and is 4.138 denars or nearly 70 euros higher.

Truthmeter recently assessed SDSM’s promise given for the snap general elections (December 2016), committing itself to introducing measures that will enable any citizen to check on the computer the salary of any government minister, whether and how much they have been indemnified for travel and other expenditures within the first six months in office. This promise of SDSM, laid down in the electoral program “Plan for Life in Macedonia”, chapter “Plan 180 – Urgent Reform Priorities of the New Government in the First 6 Months” (page 231) was assessed as partially fulfilled.

Let us clarify that after the said article was published, the Government provided us with new data on Ministers’ net salaries, explaining that following the consultations with the corresponding services there have been alterations in the original data we got by email. According to the new data, the lowest ministerial net salary paid in October is 66.117,00 denars, around 1.075 euros (Asaf Ademi, Minister of Culture), while the highest is 92.299,00 denars, around 1.500 euros (Oliver Spasovski, Deputy President of the Government of the Republic of Macedonia and Minister of Interior). These amounts are higher than the original list published on 9 November 2018 in the previous article and Minister Oliver Spasovski’s salary was not on that list. The difference in the net salaries of the Ministers on both lists varies from 300 to 12.000 denars.

In order to report correctly, we publish the new data on Ministers’ net salaries, however we remind that the assessment of Social-democrat’s electoral promise remains unchanged – partially fulfilled. As we already wrote in the previous article, the idea of this promise is not for the citizens (media, NGOs) to submit special requests for obtaining public information or to calculate the Ministers’ salaries. Instead they should be able to do that simply, by  by using a special software placed on an easy-to-see spot. A check that still isn’t a click away. However, since one part of the promise has been implemented, we deem that the launch of the Accountability Tool for the Expenditures of the Public Officials is only partially fulfilled.

Amount of net salary paid in October 2018. Source: Government of the RM

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