Government of Kosovo has launched an incentive to remove from office all those officials who have been alleged for their involvement in corruption affairs.

Government representatives say that fight against corruption and organized crime is becoming “tougher” and that engagement in this aspect is serious. “We have now raised the issue of removing officials who have been accused of corruption in order to allow the law to act independently”, says the political advisor of the Prime Minister of Kosovo, Faton Abdullahu.

A few weeks ago, in response to the accusations raised by the Attorney General for abuse with office, PM Isa Mustafa relieved from duty the minister of Environment and Urban Planning, Ferid Agani. Mr. Abdullahu says that corruption is not something new in Kosovo and according to him, the government of Kosovo is not immune to this. “I think that it’s not only the government that must do more in this aspect. All institutions, organizations and civil society must be involved. I think that the government of Kosovo is in the right direction and I believe that it will continue with this approach”, Abdullahu said.

But representatives of NGOs in the country say that corruption in Kosovo has not yet started to be fought and that so far, there are still no signals that such thing is being done. Arton Demehasaj, head of “Rise” organization, says that the efforts made by institutions to fight corruption have not yielded any results so far. “Responsible institutions have never yielded concrete results. They have always said that they would fight corruption and organized crime and then nothing has been done”, Demahasaj says. Demahasaj is not expecting any concrete results in the fight against corruption in the near future. According to him the problem relates to the fragility of the justice system and the impact of politics on it.

Fight against corruption and organized crime has also been discussed in the meetings that US Assistant Secretary of State, Victoria Nuland had with Kosovo officials during her visit in Pristina. This issue is also linked to the progress in the process of the liberalization of visas for the citizens of the country.

By giving the green light, in May of this year, the European Commission demanded a tougher war on corruption. The Rapporteur on Kosovo in the European Parliament, Ulrike Lunacek declared that Kosovo must send senior officials who are accused of corruption behind bars.

So far, Kosovo has not given any strong evidence in the fight against high level corruption.

Balkaneu

14 July 2016