Misdemeanor proceedings for seven deans due to property declarations

Of the total of 28 deans for which the State Commission for the Prevention of Corruption started a procedure, 23 filed personal property declarations, while five have not yet submitted them. The Anti-Corruption Commission underlines that they have adopted a decision to initiate a misdemeanor procedure for deans at state universities, from the St. Cyril and Methodius University – Skopje, Goce Delcev University – Stip and Mother Theresa University – Skopje that have not submitted the property declaration.

“After obtaining data and documentation, it was determined that Deans Vlatko Shesov, Roberta Apostolovska, Ratko Duev, Zoran Rakicevic and Dragan Kuzmanov have submitted questionnaires outside the legally prescribed deadline, while the Deans Kiro Ivanovski and Kiril Sotirovski have not submitted any personal property declarations at all. The State Commission for the Prevention of Corruption will continue the misdemeanor procedure against all seven listed Deans. For the remaining deans, after collecting the necessary information and documentation, the SCPC will continue to act in accordance with its competencies”, the Anti-Corruption Commission said.

The State Commission for the Prevention of Corruption has initiated a misdemeanor procedure for the rector of the Mother Teresa University, Aziz Polozhani, for failing to submit a property declaration. According to the law, he was obliged to do so within 30 days after taking office. Anti-corruption said that after publishing the news in the media, Rector Polozani delivered a declaration, at the beginning of last month, on March 1.

The Rector Aziz Polozhani says that it was not intentional that he did not submit the declaration to the SCPC in time.

“It is true that I was late submitting the property declaration to the State Commission for the Prevention of Corruption. I thought there was no commission. My opinion was that when there is no commission, there will be no one to consider the declaration. When they pointed me out, I immediately delivered them, a newspaper article reminded me. A big problem at the university is also that we are lacking administration staff who would reminds us of such things. Some omissions occur and therefore I hope that the Commission will take into account the circumstances. Misdemeanor procedures are envisaged procedures, and the Commission will act according to the law”, Polozani said.

Meanwhile, it is being checked whether deans at the other state universities (State University in Tetovo, University of Information Science and Technologies “St. Apostle Paul” -Ohrid and the University “St. Kliment Ohridski” -Bitola) have submitted personal property declarations. After collecting the relevant documentation, the SCPC will adopt appropriate conclusions at the session, ie it will initiate procedures.

Last month, the State Education Inspectorate, within the framework of the cooperation with the Anti-Corruption Commission, started collecting data from primary and secondary schools, as well as from state higher education institutions. The data from the educational institutions will be collected, the State Educational Inspectorate pointed out, in order to check whether there have been new employment contracts since the announcement of the elections, ie from February 8, 2019 until now.

The check will cover whether there were new full-time or part-time employment in schools or higher education institutions, employment for urgent matters, redistribution of employees from one job to another and whether recruitment procedures were initiated and placed on standby from the day of announcing the election. If violations of the Electoral Code are found, the Inspectorate said that the State Election Commission will take further actions.

“The data in the given form should be complete and precise and the State Education Inspectorate will carry out additional inspection supervision for them. After the completion of the supervision, which will cover all primary and secondary schools, as well as state higher education institutions, the findings will be submitted to the State Commission for Prevention of Corruption, which will take further actions if violations of the Electoral Code are found”, the State educational inspectorate said.

The Inspectorate does not disclose why the Anti-Corruption Commission for the Prevention of Corruption decided on such a move, to “comb through” schools and faculties. They do not disclose whether they have evidence that there have been new employments in schools or at faculties after announcing the elections or just indicate that they will be strictly supervised.

Veronika Maroska-Leova