Just one more week's deadline, about 3 thousand S.C. officials have yet to declare wealth

By Anti-Corruption Agency leaders, it is considered that this number is small for those who have declared property so far, considering that by the end of the deadline it has remained a week.

The director of the Department for Prevention of Corruption at the Anti-Corruption Agency, Africa Atashi, in an interview for Kosovo Press says all those officials who do not declare property will be penalised in the prosecutor with criminal charges.

For that, Atashi has asked officials not to wait until the end of the months, not to cause problems on the online system, as he said.

Until now we're talking, even a week before the end of the regular legal deadline, they've declared property around 1,000 and 800 senior public officials from the total, which is less than 5 thousand... Even this situation is resolved and defined by law, all senior public officials who do not declare property in the pre-legal term are sanctioned by the law, respectively, Kosovo's penal code, but no property declaration is criminal offence and the penalty is up to three years in prison or fines. All those who do not declare their property in the previous legal deadline that is set by the Agency, but also the Law will take action against them”, he said.

Compared to 2020, Atatish says this year is a smaller number of officials who have declared the property, as he says may also be responsible for the Pandemia Guide-19.

“Based on practices already more than ten years, usually top public officials leave statements to him in the last days of the months or at the end of the legal deadline. This practice has always been followed, even though we have appealed earlier this month. Now I believe and I can consider that we have an even smaller statement because of the uncertainty and circumstances of the system, because we have elections, appointments and so on. But we have an impasse in this regard and we can say that less have declared wealth if we talk about the same times... Of course, it's a small number that last year if we talk about the same day and time”, Atish points out.

Director Atashi has appealed to all officials who are obliged to declare property, not to leave until the last days of the set term.

If I have the opportunity to make an appeal and ask senior officials to come as soon as they can declare the property they don't expect the last few days because even consultations are almost impossible if there is any uncertainty as to the declaration or form of property”, he says.

According to Atish, the AKK this year has been challenged with the Covid-19 pandemic, and for that it has been enabled to declarators to do it in the online system.

The statement officially started on March 1st and ends on 31st this month, and the legal obligation is to declare property 4 thousand and 880 senior officials on the platform online.

The AKK says it is a large number of top officials who have been convicted or filed an indictment for not declaring, lying statements and post-term statements in the past year.