Corruption continues to thrive in Kosovo as the country has only seen very minor anti-corruption progress over the past four years, says Kosova Democratic Institute today with the release of their report “National Integrity System Assessment Kosovo”. Limited institutional cooperation and law enforcement gaps show a lack of political will and commitment in fighting corruption.
The comprehensive report follows the National Integrity System methodology of Transparency International, the leading global anti-corruption coalition, and assesses anti-corruption mechanisms across 15 sectors of society, including political, judicial, independent and non-governmental institutions. Most importantly the report provides recommendations to address identified shortcomings.
In Kosovo, there is a tendency to address corruption problems with national strategies and action plans which, in practice, seem more like wish-lists rather than solutions with priorities for change”, said Visar Sutaj, one of study authors.
Anti-corruption legislation is largely in place, but in practice its implementation lags far behind. All efforts made in the last four years to reduce this gap were either not applied or did not address the issues at stake.
There’re too many institutions fighting corruption. The main challenge is joining efforts to fight corruption”, said Libor Chlad from EU office in Kosovo.
Moreover, the study finds that there is a lack of cooperation between institutions and actors involved in fighting corruption, despite a number of isolated anti-corruption initiatives. Institutional accountability and integrity in the country are extremely low.
In particular the research finds political parties, state owned enterprises and government to be the sectors with the lowest level of integrity regarding tolerance of corruption. This confirms the assumption that politics and the government, where political and financial power is concentrated and from which it spreads to other sectors, are central to the problem of limited anti-corruption progress and the overall lack of political will to effectively fight corruption.. The Office of the Auditor General and Ombudsperson, however, represent successful integrity models with a potential to fight administrative corruption. These two institutions are followed by the Anti-Corruption Agency, Media and Police, in terms of high levels of integrity.
In order to effectively reduce corruption and ensure a better future for Kosovo citizens, .Kosovo Democratic Institute calls for the following recommendations to be implemented:
“If the government does not get serious about tackling corruption, not only will the country suffer in terms of political and financial stability, but Kosovo citizens will continue to feel the effects of pervasive poverty resulting from corruptive practices which are spread at alarming pace. I truly hope that this study will prompt the government to generate the needed political will to take upon concrete measures to stop and prevent corruption”, concluded Ismet Kryeziu, KDI Executive Director.
For more, please read the full report in the following link: http://www.kdi-kosova.org/publikime/19-2015-10-31-kdi-tik-nis-eng_all_single_final-3.pdf
This project is funded by the European Union and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation in partnership with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).