Only 80 percent of public officials declared property, deadlines are extended due to pandemic

Officials of this Anti-Corruption Agency claim that even at this time of the pandemic they have handled cases of corruption in terms of investigation, prevention and handover to the prosecutor.

The department's director for property statements at the Anti-Corruption Agency, Agron Behrami, tells Kosovo that in terms of prevention and fighting corruption, the Agency with a reduced staff has managed to prosecute several cases in the prosecutor at this time of the pandemic.

“As far as preventing and combating corruption in the Anti-Corruption Agency, we can say with full conviction that the Agency has continued its work, but not with its full staff, but with a halve of senior public officials, we have continued working and handled cases in terms of investigation, prevention and deployment to other institutions. So, all the cases that have been reported, the Agency has taken priority and has been handling these cases as well. As far as the cases have been handled this year, we finally release the final report... Statistics are working, and we don't have them as safe statistics for this period”, Behram declares.

He has declared that about 80 per cent of senior public officials have declared property in this year's Anti-Corruption Agency, while 4 thousand and 694 public officials are obliged to submit to the property declaration.

“As far as declaring property on the regular deadline, we at any time, even now are accepting forms. So far about 80 per cent of top public officials have completed the property declaration process, while some have still not been able to complete the property declaration process because senior public officials need to co-operate with institutions and collect information on property statements, as well as a number of senior public officials have not been able to perform. We have cases that even senior public officials are affected by Ovid 19 and have not been able to declare wealth... This has been a fundamental reason that the AKK has extended the time of declaration of property until the measures are eased, we will return to the declaration process when this situation” ends, he says.

According to Behram, the property declaration has a strong role in the overall prevention of cases or anti-corruption phenomena, while stressing that no declaration of property and the false declaration of wealth is a criminal offence.

“As far as prevention or effect is concerned in the fight against corruption, property declaration is only a preventive measure against corruption in general. We think there is an important role in the process of preventing corruption. Similarly, transparency in property statements has affected a lot since 2010, this information has been public. So it has influenced citizens to present cases and report these cases. Of course, the Kosovo prosecution and police have also dealt with these statements in general, and have made different checks on the property declaration process”, Bermai claims.

While, according to Behram in the past year about 1.6 per cent of senior public officials or about 60 officials had not declared their property, and all these cases were prosecuted in the respective institutions and in the prosecution, then there were different verdicts and fines.