Government Dismisses 2 of 3 M-NAV Directors, Appoints New Ones

The Government of North Macedonia held on Tuesday the previously announced session at which the ministers discussed the recent events at the Macedonian Air Navigation (M-NAV).

The government initially reached a decision to dismiss two of the three directors of M-NAV, Fahrudin Hamidi and Ljube Stamenkovski, and proposed as their replacements Ilir Mehmedi and Milan Korakj.

However, later on Tuesday evening, the government had changed the initial decision, replacing Ilir Mehmedi with Hekuran Asani. Before this, several media reported that Ilir Mehmedi, who comes from the National Agency for Civil Aviation (NCA), does not have the proper qualifications to be Director of M-NAV, and had also been involved in scandals, when his wife traveled with him on official trips to different locations in the world on expense of the state, as well as conducting other payments for private needs on the account of NCA.

The trade union of flight controllers at M-NAV welcomed the decisions of the government, and announced they will temporarily put the strike they announced for Wednesday on hold.

VMRO-DPMNE reacted over the governmental session, stating that dismissals of directors are not enough for damage-control after the scandals, and that the responsible ones for the incidents must end up in jail.