DUI vowed to listen to the Anti-Corruption Commission

Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs and EU Chief Negotiator Bujar Osmani from the headquarters of the Anti-Corruption Commission vowed that DUI will seek responsibility from its officials if it finds a conflict of interests in the employment of relatives.

Although some of the close family members of the SDSM officials resigned, as they said, due to moral reasons, for now those coming from DUI seem as if they don’t care. Allegedly, they were waiting for the competent authorities to make their decisions. ELEM remains the most attractive company for getting a job there. The daughter of Parliament Speaker Talat Xhaferi works there, as well as the son of the Deputy Secretary General in the Government, Tahir Hani. MEPSO is also an interesting company. The sister of the Minister of Economy, Kreshnik Bekteshi, has a job there. Bekteshi clearly stated that he did not feel moral responsibility and would not ask his sister to resign from her workplace because she was adult, she was not living with him, she was married and that she was capable of making her own life decisions.

“The fight against corruption is non-selective, it does not recognize political parties. I am here to support the non-selective treatment of these cases, we must not allow mistakes. We invested too much to let pebbles get in our way,” Deputy PM Osmani said after his meeting with the chairman of the commission, Biljana Ivanovska.

Osmani also said that his party offered its maximum support for continuing the fight against corruption impartially and indiscriminately.

“If the Anti-Corruption Commission decides that one of the DUI officials has abused office, the party will demand accountability,” said Deputy Prime Minister Osmani, according to which both anti-corruption systems – the prosecution law covering both the SPO and the SCPC are one of the key successes ahead of the recommendation from the EU.

The Anti-Corruption Chief requested SEA assistance for new premises, and urged to submit asset declarations from all officials. The commission will very soon come up with initial information on the sixty open cases of nepotism, and also opens a case for pre-election promotions and appointments to the Army that was signed last week by President Gjorge Ivanov.

She called on all institutions, especially the inspectorates, who have competencies in this sphere to engage in the fight against corruption.

The communication channel between the Anti-Corruption and the institutions and companies from which data for employments are requested is still shut down. None of them have completed the task for the time being and did not provide the necessary documentation, although the deadline expires this week.

Jobs in state-owned companies thanks to powerful mothers, fathers and cousins ​​is a disease from which no government is immune. Relatives are getting jobs in bundles, while the criteria prescribed by law are not respected. Thus, two percent of the directors and seven percent of the members of the supervisory boards only have high school degrees. Education is a clear formal appointment naming criterion established in the legal framework. The fulfillment of the criterion is easily determined by examination of diplomas, and the different interpretation is quite difficult,” reads the study.
The study on managing “Who’s managing?”, developed by the Institute for Democracy, shows that as much as five percent of the governing structures have secondary education.

“What is concerning is that people with high school diplomas appear as directors and members of the supervisory boards that is contrary to the legal criteria, where higher education is mandatory.

The Institute requested the biographies of the directors and members of the management and supervisory committees from public enterprises, state-owned companies, regulatory bodies, independent state and administrative bodies through the Law on Access to Public Information. They received biographies from 641 officials, received nothing from 323, and received only the names and surnames of 235. Without experience in the area in which they were appointed were the directors of immigration agencies, Cadaster, the youth and sports agency, the agency for foreign investment.

“What is amusing is that supervisory boards, where above all, should be members of the legal and financial background, has 22 per cent technical personnel, 12 per cent that studied social sciences and four per cent that studied arts and humanities. The supervisory boards’ job is to monitor the material and financial work of the institutions,” the Institute said.

Hence, the extent of the capacity of supervisory boards to complete their duties is put into question.

The Institute for Democracy believes that in regulatory and autonomous state organs, transparency should be met through an interview similar to the selection of SCPC with the participation of other stakeholders who will be able to ask questions and where the interviews will be broadcast on public television.

“The public interview should also be practiced in the appointment of directors, management and supervisory boards of enterprises. Interviews that would be conducted by the board of directors or representatives of founders may be broadcast on local media. The process should be at least open to the public, civil society organizations and other stakeholders who can observe,” the Institute said.

(NK)