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From Tahiri to Alda Klosi, VOA: Experts worried about the level of corruption in Albania

2023-02-12 21:16:50Aktualitet SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX

From Tahiri to Alda Klosi, VOA: Experts worried about the level of corruption in

Corruption in Albania continues to be a disturbing phenomenon with consequences in the functioning of state institutions. Albania continues to remain one of the countries with a high level of corruption and low impunity of high officials.

Despite the efforts in the field of investigation as a result of the establishment of the special structure of the Prosecution Against Organized Crime and Corruption at the end of 2019, as part of the justice reform, corruption still remains a serious area of ​​concern.

Recently, several consecutive scandals, such as the arrest of the official Alda Klosi, who has held important public functions, under the charge of money laundering, or the employee of the National Agency of the Information Society, Erisa Fero, for trafficking of subjects narcotics, raise strong doubts about the wide spread of corruption in state institutions, the manner of recruitment of employees as well as the work of the institutions responsible for its prevention.

Researchers and journalists say that the efforts of new justice institutions in the fight against corruption are being eroded by the weak functioning of preventive mechanisms.

"The recent cases that happened in Albania showed that the security system in public administration and political appointees are involved in corrupt cases and showed that there was no mechanism to prevent it. It took a public scandal to understand that millions of lek move in the state offices, the same individuals move from one post to another, there is no preventive mechanism and moreover, there is a great arrogance towards the need for transparency and accountability" - he told the Voice of America Afrim Krasniqi, Executive Director of the Institute of Political Studies.

DASH's report states that while prosecutors made significant progress in pursuing cases of low- and medium-level public corruption, including former ministers, former deputies and mayors, judges and prosecutors in office, as well as former prosecutors and former judges, the prosecution rate for high-ranking officials remained low.

The highest officials sentenced to deprivation of liberty so far, since the beginning of the operation of the new justice institutions, are the former Minister of the Interior Sajmir Tahiri, for abuse of office, the former Prosecutor General Adriatik Llalla, the latter in absentia , for concealing wealth, and the former mayor of Lushnja, for abuse of office.

The Special Prosecutor's Office told the Voice of America that since December 2019, when it started its function, and until now, a total of 84 criminal proceedings have been investigated with 257 people under investigation, former public officials and in justice for criminal offenses of corruption and abuse of office. and respectively 77 and 74% of them were sent for trial.

While according to the data provided by the Voice of America, in the Special Court of First Instance for these criminal offenses, about 180 former public officials and former officials of the justice system, or about 95% of those sent for trial.

The researchers note that citizens' trust in the new justice institutions is increasing, mainly for the Special Prosecutor's Office. Gjergji Vurmo, program director of the Institute for Democracy and Mediation, says that this was established in a survey recently conducted by this institute.

"Spak has performed well, but it is still insufficient. The lack of other pillars puts the entire anti-corruption effort, which is already made by only one pillar, into a complete siege. And if it continues in this way, we shouldn't be surprised that SPAK will start to collapse along the way," Gjergji Vurmo, program director at the Institute for Democracy and Mediation, told Voice of America.

The Voice of America addressed you and the Agency for Media and Information for an official position regarding the issues of corruption in Albania, but did not receive a response.

Prime Minister Edi Rama in several public reactions recently, after the accusations of money laundering and drug trafficking for the two officials Klosi and Fero, said that reforms in justice and the strengthening of law enforcement institutions are done to clean up the scum. But in the spring of last year, speaking at a party forum, he had a different approach to the new justice and specifically to the Special Prosecutor's Office and accused it of only hitting socialists.

"It is really a big mockery that SPAK so far uses only one type of hook and only for one type of fish" - said Prime Minister Edi Rama in the spring of 2022.

Government leaders have continuously declared that they are fighting corruption, but researchers and analysts question the anti-corruption efforts of the government, when they find that the investigations into the biggest corruption cases in the country have started mainly after random operations, publications in the media, international investigations, or denunciations of political opponents. According to them, this means that many institutions have failed not only in preventing corruption, but also in bringing those responsible to justice.

"For many years, the Prime Minister has had an anti-corruption directorate, which has now been subordinated to the Ministry of Justice. She has been active with every prime minister of the left and the right. We have not seen or heard any denunciations from them, except when there are officials related to the other side, or critical officials within the political party. We have the money laundering directorate, but we have not seen any report, no facts from this directorate, no denunciation regarding the big scandals that happened in Albania. We have other authorities such as the Competition Authority, or other inspectorates related to the country's economy, which follow the developments and the connection of politicians with the conflict of interest. None of them has made a major denunciation, so there are no concrete steps" - Afrim Krasniqi continued.

"The fact that the main anti-corruption operations have as a source everything other than the executive, is an indicator that speaks of the readiness of the majority to fight corruption" - continued Gjergji Vurmo, program director at the Institute for Democracy and Mediation.

The editor-in-chief of the Monitor magazine, Ornela Liperi, says that in the biggest corruption cases, such as the health concessions or those of the incinerators, many high-ranking officials have been implicated, while adding with regret that she does not see any progress in the investigations, to put them in charge responsibility. Arrested in connection with the incinerators are former Minister Lefter Koka, former socialist deputy Alqi Blako and dozens of other officials at the central and local level.

"For the two incinerators, that of Fier and Elbasan, the investigations started when they received the money, while the incinerator of Tirana continues in a shameful manner and is still being paid. It takes about 10 million euros per year from the budget and we don't see any work being done," Ornela Liperi told the Voice of America.

Experts note that in Albania the income per capita is among the lowest in Europe, the average salary difference compared to the countries of the region is 40%, and that economic growth is mainly based on large projects and the economic inflation, according to them, comes from black money. of high crime and corruption. On the other hand, they note that public pressure towards those responsible is low.

"It is the taxpayers' money. Public pressure on how money is spent is low. If it had happened in Germany, France or somewhere else, there would have been protest pressure, they would have forced the government to be careful, or even to withdraw. In Albania, public awareness is very low", says Mrs. Liperi.

Researchers and analysts as well as various international reports state that corruption at high levels in Albania, despite some progress, remains unpunished. According to them, the efforts of the new institutions of justice, to fight it, in many cases seem isolated and unsupported by other responsible state links.


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