NEWS OF THE DAY: Contract for procurement of 200.000 Chinese vaccines signed, they will arrive by the end of the month
Minister of Health Venko Filipce signed the Contract for procurement of vaccines against Covid-19 from the Chinese producer “Sinopharm”. With the contract, Republic of North Macedonia is providing 200 thousand vaccines from the Chinese company “Sinopharm”, which will arrive this month. The exact date when they will arrive and all information related to the delivery are expected to be confirmed in the following days, announced the Ministry of Health.
Due to respecting the provision of the contract on secrecy, and in accordance to the global policy of all companies producing vaccines, including “Sinopharm” as well, information contained in this contract remains confidential, points out the Ministry and adds that the vaccines from China will arrive in our country at the airport in Skopje.
A detailed plan has been made for transportation of the vaccine from the airport to the economic operators (drug wholesalers) that are in charge of storing the quantities, and also a plan for distribution to the vaccination points where vaccination will be carried out. Last week the volume of the cold storage rooms was measured, and the capacities for storing the entire quantity were assessed. The “Sinopharm” vaccine is kept and distributed at a temperature between 2 to 8 degrees, while the vaccines are packaged in a formulation of a pre-filled syringes, which eases the very application of the vaccine.
STATEMENT IF THE DAY
“The support of Slovakia is clear, unmistakeable and principled. North Macedonia deserves start of negotiations, for which a decision was made by a consensus in March last year. I can agree that we should not enter misunderstandings in the EU, but at the same time the impression that is being made both in our country and other countries in the region that the integration process is becoming unpredictable, unclear or, more specifically, is a kind of a moving target that does award according to performance but according to the current political circumstances, is objective, said Minister of Foreign Affairs Bujar Osmani following the meeting with Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of Slovakia Ivan Korćok, who is paying a working visit to the country.
CIVIL ACTIVITIES
CIVIL is organizing a panel discussion on the topic “How the census can be (mis)used?”, on Tuesday, February 9 at Hotel “Solun” in Skopje, starting at 1.00 pm. The panel discussion will be attended by Apostol Simovski, Director of the State Statistical Office, Petre Shilegov, Mayor of the City of Skopje, Ljupco Zikov, chief editor of “Kapital” and Dehran Muratov, journalist and coordinator in CIVIL. The panel discussion will be led by journalist Zoran Ivanov.
In compliance to the protection measures against Covid-19, the panel discussion will be held without an audience, whereas the public and media will be able to follow the event live on CIVIL’s Facebook page and YouTube channel as well.
CIVIL’s panel discussion will try to answer several questions and topics related to the census, according to the expertise, that is, experience of the participants in the panel discussion. The first speaker at the event will be Apostol Simovski, Director of the State Statistical Office, which is the most relevant institution for conducting the census. He will answer the question how the census will be conducted and what is the meaning of this statistical operation. The remaining questions and topics refer to the importance of the census for the economy and business community, as well as for the smaller ethnic communities in the country. Unfortunately, the issue regarding the motives for the politicization of the census, is inevitable.
The panel discussion will last about an hour and a half. During the discussion, CIVIL’s team will follow the reactions and questions on the social networks and will pass them on to the participants in the discussion.
FLASH NEWS
Representatives of the State Commission for Prevention of Corruption and the Customs Administration today had a meeting in the direction of strengthening the cooperation in the fight against corruption. The cooperation between the two institutions, as is stated in the announcement, especially stands out with the participation of the Customs Administration in the preparation of strategic national documents for prevention and repression of corruption and conflict of interest, as well is in the participation in IPA projects in the area of anti-corruption action and strengthening the capacities engaged in this common fight.
The VMRO-DPMNE parliamentary group today submitted to the parliament president the signatures and minutes of meetings from the Initiative for adopting a law on revoking the Law on Census.
The fight against crime and corruption, as well as narrowing the space for possibilities for spending by officials continues to be top of the government’s agenda, but also of the department it runs, said today Deputy Prime Minister in charge of fight against corruption and crime, sustainable development and human resources, Ljupco Nikolovski.
The Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office Skopje rejected the criminal charges filed by a judge of the Supreme Court against the president and two members of the Judicial Council of the RNM for the crime – Abuse of official position and authorization according to Article 353 paragraph 2 in connection to paragraph 1 of the Criminal Code.
On the list of companies that have received state assistance, but have not paid salaries to their employees in December, is also Alfa television. According to the data that the government published, the company received assistance in the amount of 1,775,820 MKD for 102 employees.
After 12 days of boycotting, which they started in the first day of the second semester, the high school graduates organized by the Union of high school students today are returning to classes. The General Assembly of the Union on Thursday decided to put the boycott on hold and to wait for the Parliament to find a solution, after the parliamentary group of VMRO-DPMNE submitted a draft law on amending the Law on Secondary Education.
D.M
translation: N. Cvetkovska
