What happens when a city stops trusting the water flowing from its own taps? The real crisis begins long before the pipes run dry.
By Azir Aliu
Prof. Dr. Azir Aliu is a computer scientist, university professor, and technology expert from North Macedonia. He is a Full Professor at the South East European University and has held senior academic and innovation leadership roles throughout his career. Aliu has also served as Minister of Public Administration (2023–2024) and, as Minister of Health of North Macedonia (2025-2026). His research and public writing focus on digital transformation, public sector reform, healthcare innovation, and evidence-based policymaking.
A citizen does not need a new Comrade Zylo to explain how complex the situation is.
What the citizen needs are institutions that understand how simple, human, and vitally important the need truly is: to open a bottle, fill a glass with water, give water to a child, and live without fear.
In the novel “The Rise and Fall of Comrade Zylo”, Dritëro Agolli does not merely create a satirical portrait of an official intoxicated by power.
He deconstructs a logic of governance in which words replace work, meetings replace decisions, and responsibility disappears into the corridors of the bureaucracy.
Comrade Zylo creates the impression that he is always busy.
He develops concepts, sets directions, initiates reports, organizes meetings, and strives to present every activity as part of a broader vision.
He cultivates the impression that he possesses exclusive insight and that only he can properly interpret the complexity of the situation.
Yet behind the appearance of constant activity, the essence remains unchanged: words accumulate, reports multiply, while the fundamental problems remain unresolved.
Agolli presents Zylo not merely as an incompetent individual, but as the product of a system that values appearances more than substance, obedience more than competence, and the illusion of work more than results.
That is precisely why today’s administration of Gostivar inevitably recalls the world of this novel.
Not because the situation leaves room for humor.
On the contrary, it is far too serious to be reduced to irony.
But the parallel becomes unavoidable when, before a tap from which a citizen does not dare fill even a single glass of water, institutions produce more explanations than solutions.
Statements, press conferences, coordination meetings, commissions, analyses, and conflicting institutional interpretations follow one another.
Activity is presented as achievement, procedure as solution, and communication as a substitute for action.
Yet the families of Gostivar are not asking how many institutions convened or how many reports were prepared.
They are asking where they can obtain safe drinking water today.
A statement may describe the crisis, but it does not fill the glass.
Public responsibility begins where explanations end and action begins.
Still, it would be irresponsible to reduce the entire situation to a single pump, a single order, or a single omission; individual responsibility must be established through investigation and the judicial process.
But water supply systems do not collapse in a single day; they deteriorate over years, through ignored warnings, postponed investments, and temporary solutions presented as reforms.
The audit finding from 2019 is a serious warning: approximately 81 percent of the water in Gostivar was either non-revenue water or unaccounted for—a category that includes physical losses in the network, illegal consumption, inaccurate measurements, and improperly recorded quantities.
This is not evidence of microbiological contamination, but it is a clear indicator of profound weaknesses in measurement, oversight, maintenance, and management.
A utility that does not know where most of the water entering its network ends up has not only a financial problem but also a managerial blind spot.
Without accurate data on water input, losses, and the quantity reaching consumers, it is difficult to credibly claim that the system is under control.
In 2024, the citizens of the Municipality of Gostivar once again faced a ban on the use of tap water, this time due to elevated levels of manganese.
During the same period, analyses with differing conclusions about the quality of the same water were published.
The ban was later lifted, but the case should have served as a serious alarm to strengthen monitoring, standardize sampling procedures, and establish a transparent public information system.
Instead, once the ban was lifted, the case was closed without any visible systemic improvements and without a municipal action plan for rehabilitating and modernizing the water supply network.
This year, the public utility itself reported an aging water network, recurring breakdowns, water shortages, and low pressure, while simultaneously appealing to citizens to use water more rationally.
Responsible water consumption is everyone’s obligation, but appeals cannot substitute for governance.
When the network loses enormous quantities of water, pipelines have reached the end of their service life, and stable pressure has not been secured, responsibility must be measured by the condition of the system and the results of its management.
Here, once again, the logic of Comrade Zylo becomes recognizable: it is easier to discipline the public than to reform the system.
A responsible administration asks citizens to behave rationally, but first it accounts for its own performance—how much water is being lost and where, what portion of the network has been renewed, how many measuring devices have been replaced, how much funding has been invested, and by when those losses will be reduced.
Viewed in this context, the chronology of the past few weeks no longer appears as an isolated coincidence detached from the past.
It appears instead as the culmination of a series of warnings that failed to produce the necessary reform.
On June 24, the citizens of Gostivar were informed that the water was unsafe for use due to technical interventions related to improving pressure in the distribution network.
On June 29, the public was notified that samples taken from several locations had met bacteriological and physico-chemical standards and that the water was safe to use.
On July 17, following an increase in the number of patients with gastrointestinal symptoms, the Food and Veterinary Agency prohibited the use of the water due to reasonable suspicion that it was contaminated and unsafe.
Just one day later, the Institute of Public Health advised that the water should not be used for drinking, cooking, washing fruit and vegetables, preparing coffee, tea, or ice, brushing teeth, or hand hygiene.
It was not recommended for drinking even after boiling.
Within a short period of time, the citizen received three different messages about the very same tap: The water is unsafe. The water is safe. Do not use it.
This is not merely a communication failure.
It is a fracture in public trust.
When the official position changes without clearly explaining what has changed in the samples, the sampling locations, the methodology, or the laboratory parameters, the citizen is not being informed.
The citizen is being disoriented.
A single compliant test result from one location, obtained at one particular moment, cannot automatically be presented as an absolute certificate for every part of the network, every neighborhood, and every hour of the day.
A professional conclusion must explain where the sample was taken, when it was taken, which parameters were examined, and which part of the system that sample genuinely represents.
When this information is missing, the report does not reduce uncertainty.
It merely shifts it elsewhere.
Every gap that institutions fail to fill with facts will be filled by the public with fear, doubt, and rumors.
That is why trust is itself an integral part of public health.
A system is not sustained solely by laboratories, pipelines, and protocols.
It is sustained equally by the trust that the information provided to citizens is accurate, complete, and communicated responsibly.
That is why, even when clean water begins flowing from the taps again, one question will remain: Can this water be trusted?
Restoring the water supply is only half of the solution.
The other half is restoring trust, and trust is not rebuilt through yet another press release, but through continuous transparency, publicly accessible analyses, and consistent institutional conduct.
The proceedings of the Public Prosecutor’s Office must continue independently, free from political interference and external pressure.
Individual criminal liability must be established through evidence, expert examinations, and due legal process—not through political verdicts or public accusations.
No one should be declared guilty before the judicial institutions have spoken their final word.
Yet the findings released by the Prosecutor’s Office are far too serious for this case to be reduced to an ordinary technical malfunction.
According to the official statement, there is reason to suspect that, on June 25, an order was issued to install three submersible pumps in a surface-water canal immediately adjacent to the drinking water supply system.
If these allegations are confirmed, this would constitute an unauthorized and unlawful intervention in a closed drinking water supply system—an action that would have directly endangered both its safety and the health of the citizens.
During the on-site inspection conducted on July 16, according to the Prosecutor’s Office, two of the pumps were still operating, through which water from the open canal was being introduced into the drinking water supply system.
These allegations form part of an ongoing criminal investigation, and individual responsibility has yet to be established.
But the laboratory findings published in the same statement describe a situation that leaves room neither for relativization nor for institutional indifference.
In the water from the open canal, 2,419.6 coliform bacteria per 100 milliliters were detected, compared to the stated maximum permissible limit of 50.
In samples taken from the captured spring, 39 coliform bacteria per 100 milliliters were detected, although the reference value should have been zero.
In a tap-water sample taken from JNA Street, the residual chlorine level measured 1.1 milligrams per liter, exceeding the maximum value of 0.5 milligrams per liter stated in the official report.
These are not political metaphors.
They are laboratory findings.
For precisely that reason, the case cannot end merely by determining whether one or more individuals issued a particular order.
The investigation must also answer a far broader question: How was it possible for a system upon which the health of tens of thousands of people depends to permit such an intervention without triggering an alarm, without an automatic shutdown, and without a timely institutional response?
A safe system is not built on the hope that no one will ever make a mistake or abuse their position.
It is built through procedures that make mistakes visible, sensors that detect deviations, registries that document every intervention, and institutions that immediately inform the public whenever a risk emerges.
If one safeguard fails, the next must respond.
If technical control fails, laboratory control must intervene.
If the operator fails, oversight must react.
If a large number of health cases emerge, the epidemiological system must be activated without delay.
When several protective mechanisms fail one after another, the issue is no longer merely an individual error.
It is a systemic failure.
In Agolli’s world, such a crisis would most likely have immediately produced an emergency meeting.
That meeting would then establish a working group, prepare an action plan, draft a report on the implementation of that plan, and finally organize a conference celebrating successful coordination.
All of that may indeed be necessary.
But none of it fills the glass of a child in Gostivar with safe drinking water.
The difference between a functional administration and one modeled after Comrade Zylo is simple: the former measures results, while the latter describes its own activity.
The citizen is not interested in how many institutions gathered in one room.
The citizen wants to know how many liters of water reached their neighborhood.
The citizen is not interested in how many trucks were photographed before they departed.
The citizen wants to know how many families were actually supplied.
The citizen is not interested in how many times the word “coordination” appeared in official statements.
The citizen wants to know whether there is a reliable schedule, a clearly designated distribution point, and a guaranteed quantity of water.
Crises are not managed by counting statements.
They are managed by calculating needs and mobilizing the capacity required to meet them.
According to the official results of the 2021 Population Census, the Municipality of Gostivar has 59,770 resident inhabitants.
In the recommendations issued following the ban on the use of tap water, the Institute of Public Health estimates that at least four liters of safe water per person per day are required for drinking and food preparation.
The calculation is straightforward: 239,080 liters of safe water per day.
However, four liters per person cover only the most immediate needs for drinking and food preparation.
They are not sufficient for handwashing, basic personal hygiene, dishwashing, and the other essential needs of a household.
For a more comprehensive emergency response, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends providing at least 15 liters of water per person per day.
The WHO estimates that approximately 20 liters per person per day are required to cover drinking, food preparation, basic personal hygiene, and food hygiene, while laundry and full-body bathing require even larger quantities.
According to these standards, the minimum daily requirement for the Municipality of Gostivar in emergency conditions amounts to 896,550 liters of safe water.
For a more functional level of service, covering drinking, cooking, and basic hygiene, the requirement reaches 1,195,400 liters per day.
If an operational reserve of 10 percent is added for logistical planning—to account for transportation losses, uneven distribution, and fluctuations in demand—the calculation rises to approximately 1.3 million liters of safe water per day.
That is the true scale of the problem.
The real question is not how many bottles appear in official photographs, but what percentage of the actual need is being covered.
Management begins precisely where propaganda ends: with the comparison between what has been done and what is genuinely required.
Every day, a single, clear, and understandable balance sheet should be published: how many liters of water have been secured, how many have been distributed, which neighborhoods and villages have been supplied, how much water has been delivered to hospitals, outpatient clinics, kindergartens, and food production and retail facilities, how many water tankers and distribution points are operational, and which laboratory findings are final.
All of this information should be published regularly on the Municipality’s official website.
This is not merely a moral obligation.
It is a fundamental instrument of crisis management.
Without numbers, it is impossible to know where shortages exist.
Without a map, it is impossible to know where assistance must be sent.
Without a clearly designated responsible person, it is impossible to know who is expected to act.
It cannot be claimed that Gostivar has been supplied with water simply because water has arrived at a warehouse.
Gostivar will have been supplied only when the water reaches the mother with an infant, the elderly person living alone, the person with disabilities, and the family without their own means of transportation.
The solidarity demonstrated by citizens, businesses, the diaspora, and humanitarian organizations can be extraordinary.
But without coordination, one neighborhood may receive more water than it needs while another is left without a single bottle.
People create solidarity.
Institutions must transform it into an organized public capacity.
In Agolli’s novel, the fall of Comrade Zylo is not merely the downfall of one man.
It is the exposure of an entire culture of governance that has lost touch with real-life challenges.
In Gostivar as well, responsibility cannot be reduced to a single name, a single pump, or a single order.
The entire system—and the way it has been managed over the years—must be reexamined.
It must be determined why the warning signs of enormous water losses failed to produce visible reforms.
Why the 2024 water ban did not result in a stronger monitoring system.
Why the city continued to struggle with an aging network, low pressure, and recurring emergency measures.
Why citizens received contradictory information regarding the safety of the water.
And why a vital public system lacked the mechanisms necessary to detect and prevent a potentially dangerous intervention in time.
Criminal responsibility is individual, and it must be established by the judiciary.
Political responsibility, however, is broader.
Moral responsibility belongs to those who knew the risks yet failed to act.
Professional responsibility belongs to those who offered guarantees without possessing sufficient evidence.
Managerial responsibility belongs to those who, even after the crisis had begun, continued counting meetings instead of counting liters.
This situation is not merely the product of one bad day.
It is the consequence of a style of governance that, for years, has treated water more as a subject for press releases than as a critical system requiring investment, measurement, maintenance, oversight, and continuous accountability.
We will have to speak about all of this—with documents, dates, and names—as soon as the ongoing procedures are completed.
Serious societies do not build justice upon momentary outrage.
But neither do they use the duration of an investigation as an excuse for silence and passivity.
Today, the question is far simpler—and far more direct:
Does every family in Gostivar have access to safe drinking water?
The citizen does not need a new Comrade Zylo to explain how complicated the situation is.
What the citizen needs are institutions that understand how simple, how human, and how vital the need truly is: to open a bottle, fill a glass with water, give water to a child, and live without fear.
When the tap runs dry, those in power must not produce explanations alone.
They must produce security, trust, and solutions.