KDI: Fighting corruption has stalled, this is Kosovo's country in the world

Stagment in the fight against corruption has also had our neighbouring countries, except Albania, which has advanced slightly by one point.

Of the 180 countries involved in the assessment, Denmark and New Zealand are the first while the last are Northern Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, Sudan and North Korea.

Kosovo is in 104th place -- the position it shares with Albania, Algeria, Côte d'Ivoire, El Salvador, Vjetnam and Thailand -- follows Periscopi.

KDI's complete communication:

KDI: Stand-down continues in fight against corruption in Kosovo

The results of the 2020 Corruption Perceptions Index confirm continuing stagnation in the fight against corruption. For the second consecutive year, Kosovo scored 36 points, ranking 104 points along with Albania, Algeria, Côte d'Ivoire, El Salvador, Vietnam and Thailand.

Transparency International (TI), uses a sophisticated scientific methodology and bases the report mainly on credit reports by international organisations such as Freedom House, World Bank, Bertelsmann Foundation, World Justice Project ROLI, Global Insight and Varies of Democracy Project. The index uses the 100-degree rating system on which the maximum estimate means "free country from corruption," while the zero-point assessment means highly corrupt country.

Globally, out of 180 countries involved in this assessment, Denmark and New Zealand share the first position by 88 points, followed by Finland, Singapore, Sweden and Switzerland by 85 points. The last country in the world keeps Somalia by 10 points, followed by northern Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Venezuela, Sudan, North Korea, etc.

At the regional level, comparison of results with those last year shows that the entire region is going through a period of stagnation, and only Albania has scored an increase of 1 points compared to last year.

It's very important that the global average, which is 43 points that we're still away from that average, and the average Europe where we even pretend to be part is 66 points.

These results show that Kosovo urgently needs to focus on three areas in order to make progress:

Independence of the justice system. - Continued political interference in the work of the judiciary has undermined the independent and professional work of the judicial system in Kosovo.

The fight against corruption despite recent changes to legislation, the creation of working groups and anti-level corruption mechanisms, fighting corruption continues to remain one of the main challenges of Kosovo society and state institutions. Local and international research speaks of high levels of corruption, nepotism, party-based employment, political appointments on public enterprise boards, etc.

In the area of public procurement, transparency is required to increase in all phases of the procurement procedure, but with particular emphasis it requires management and supervision for public contracts. In this area we have repeatedly demanded that the level of responsibility of public officials be made for the way public money is spent.

Also, due to the state of emergency as a result of the Devvi 19 facing Kosovo and the whole world, during 2020 large public procurement has been developed in emergency procedures that have triggered reduced institutional transparency by increasing opportunities for corruption. In 2020, during the purchase of equipment for protection measures against COVID 19, there have been price swells in public institutions-related contracts, so the state of emergency has caused increased opportunities for corruption in the particular health sector.