IKD research: Government has four ministers with active charges, including Kurti and Haxhiun

The Kosovo Institute for Justice through a media conference has published the <x0 government report with clean hands and government corruption investigation”.

Florian Smajli, a researcher in the IKD, initially said the report tells of MPs and the government cabinet who still have problems with the law.

The report will also show cases of individuals suspected of large relatives of corrupts being offered government protections as well as scandals for which there is still no answer.

While stressing that Government with people who have no problem with the law is a fundamental principle to follow that is aimed at good governance. For that principle, he said it means not to keep public positions on the part of people who have problems with the law, in the sense of active acts or penalties of formal form.

Furthermore, Smajli said that knowing and understanding the importance of the principle of presuming innocence, however, the integrity of the institution and public official is violated when situations arise where public officials spend one part of the day in court as accused and the rest of the day making public policies.

For these cases, he said they certainly violate public confidence in public institutions. The removal or suspension of these officials is the request of the United Nations Convention on Corruption.

According to the monitoring, The IKD has found that the Assembly currently consists of eight deputies who have problems with the law, while the Government is from four ministers with active charges, and three others who have active sentences. Including Prime Minister Kurti and Justice Minister Albulen Haxhiu in both cases.

As for cases when Government has not promoted the fight against corruption, Smajli highlighted the case with state reserves, allegations in the Ministry of Environment, Space Planning and Infrastructure, allegations of misuse at KEK, as well as allegations of contracts a stem.

Meanwhile, IKD researcher Eagle Gashi said that in cases where the government is accused of suspicion over certain abuses, it is gross to render public accounts. 

According to her, however, a number of issues have been identified so far when the general public has had serious doubts in relation to specific issues and have not been adequately addressed by the Government.

As such cases, Gashi stressed allegations of intervention in KEK, allegations of Ambassador Martin Berishaaj and recent doubts about subsidies from the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Rural Development. Cases that are handled in this report, like unanswered scandals.

In the end, she said officials would have to leave their positions on their own in case of abuse allegations, but that in practice the opposite happened.

According to her, this situation would enable the institutions of the justice system to clarify the situation until the public sends a powerful message of integrity. Through this approach, special cases do not allow public confidence in the institution to be lost.

This report was released within “Week Against Corruption 2024”, which with the support of the US State Department, the Bureau for International Narcotics Issues and Enforcement of Law (INL), is organised by the Coalition of Civil Society Organisations (IKD, FOL, INPO) with the motto “The Anti-Corruption Agreement”.