Only 30% of top officials declared property

Anti-Corruption Agency officials say this number of officials who have declared property is quite small.

The director of the AKK's Corruption Prevention Department, Africa Atatshi, tells Kosovo that even 3600 senior public officials have not declared the property, but hopes by 31 March they will decorate other officials.

Atashi says that for false statements this Agency has made over 30 criminal charges against senior public officials in 2018.

There are about 30 criminal charges we've made about these cases, even those who haven't made the regular annual statement, but the rumors of false statements... It's a small number of those who have declared wealth so far, but it's a practice for several years that top officials recently left declaring property. It's about 1300 out of 4700 when they're all there. If viewed by statistics, it's a very small number that they don't say in time”, Atatshi said.

While, how real are the claims of property by top public officials, Arton Demhay from the organisation “Arise” says of KosovaPress that in the absence of anti-corruption Agency mechanisms to verify what is declared and simultaneously in the absence of legal provisions to force officials to declare the origin of wealth, it can be said that a large measure of the declaration of that wealth may not be correct.

Demhasaj says most of the descriptors have unexplanatory wealth because their value exceeds one million, and on the other side of their annual revenues do not correspond to what they declare.

We've been doing research on a certain number of senior public officials and we've actually found businesses, land and other real estates that senior public officials possess and that they haven't declared at the Anti-Corruption Agency. So if we're based on this, then there are cases that officials from time to time don't even declare assets. The other problem lies in the value of wealth that officials declare year-on-year the value of wealth. D.m. th. move even with such values entirely because of legal problems that are not addressed properly”, Demhasaj said.

He has added that there is a category of officials who, in large measure, when declaring their wealth increases the value of wealth because it suits them with wealth, but there is another category that is still more dangerous that reduces the value of their assets so that they are not too rich.

While, Florent Spahija from the Kosovo Democratic Institute(KDI) says the reality and official statements are not always in line.

He said the prosecution in all cases where there are doubts should co-operate closely with the AKK in uncovering these cases and then sending them before courts.

“Accessing the statement system with electronic systems like that of cadastral records or bank accounts according to the official's personal number would be easy to detect prevention”, Spahija said in an electronic response.

The property declaration process for 2019 began on March 1st and ends on 31st this month.