Although a positive step, the activities toward reducing the air pollution in North Macedonia which were undertaken in the past three years did not reach the set goals and did not provide the desired effect, declares the State Audit Office – SAO of North Macedonia in its final audit report on the monitoring of the recommendations given by the auditors in 2018 in the “Air Quality – Cooperative Audit”

“The monitoring and the control are at a low level and only am inor part of the budgets on a central and local level are allocated for the implementation of the measures that are contained in the planning documents and, as a result, for the most part, these measures remain unimplemented,” the State auditors note.

Out of the 10 recommendations given in 2018, only one proposal was implemented, other three are being implemented, four proposals are partially implemented and two proposals aren’t implemented at all.

SAO has determined that the institutions which are the main actors in the creation and the implementation of the policies on central and local level for air quality improvement are still experiencing lack of adequate, regular personnel and experts.

At the same time, the auditors remind that no later than March 2021, the National Environmental Information System should be put in place, providing and integrated acces to the data about the air, the water and the soil.

Also, most of the municipalities where the levels of pollutants are over the border values, don’t have any plans for improvement of the air quality.