COLONEL DRAGAN KOVACKI RECYCLES DISINFORMATION

The portals Infomax.mk and Express.mk published a text on 12.12.2020 with the title: Colonel Kovacki reveals a scandal in Sekerinska’s “defense”. The text conveys the status published on Facebook and Twitter by Dragan Kovacki. In his status, Kovacki recycles the issue of Grader machines that the Ministry of Defense has procured for the needs of the Macedonian National Army in 2019. His status is presented as a revelation of a scandal.

For a reason known only to him, Kovacki recycles this news, which was placed in the public by his fellow party member Aleksandar Nikolovski as a guest on the show Top Tema (01:05:00) on February 19th, 2020. The next day, on February 20th, 2020, VMRO-DPMNE held a press conference at which they accused Minister Shekerinska, and after the press conference, the media were flooded with headlines about the embezzlement of 250,000 euros by Shekerinska. The allegation of fraud, both Nikolovski and Kovacki, is based on the difference in the sale price of the same machine purchased for the needs of the Macedonian National Army and the needs of a Serbian institution.

The difference in the selling price is due to the different specifications of the machines procured by the Macedonian National Army and the Serbian institution. On February 21st, 2020, the director of the Serbian company “Korkovado” from where the machines were procured, Dejan Stanojkovic, came out with a reaction in which he explained in detail the difference between the machines. In his reaction, among other things, Stojanovic points out the following:

“Anyone with a little technical knowledge will understand these allegations and will realize that the machines are not the same at all. On the contrary, there is a huge difference, but for the ignorant and evil people it means nothing. The buyer bought a much simpler machine due to limited funds. I must mention that you had a public procurement to which all grader sellers could apply. There was also an e-auction in which three companies participated. Why not cut prices if my graders are expensive. I mention that the others had much higher prices and that the price at which you bought the graders is extremely good, because if my company had not been on that tender, you would have paid much more for the same machines.”

Despite the denial by the company “Corcovado”, as well as the fact that the price of the machines was real and that all legal provisions were respected during the public procurement procedure, it was not published by almost all media that bombastically announced the “scandal”.

Therefore, this is another technique of disinformation by recycling old disinformation, which this time aims to damage the reputation of the Ministry of Defense and the Army of the Republic of North Macedonia.