Only accountability and transparency can bring back citizens’ trust
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- “We are fully aware that any partial action or result either by the Prosecutor’s office, the High Inspectorate of Declaration and Audit of Assets and Conflict of Interests or the Supreme State Audit will fail to effectively combat corruption, without establishing, and not only formally doing it, a national anticorruption front, where the emphasis is on strengthening accountability and transparency of public institutions,” says Bujar Leskaj, the head of Albania’s Supreme State Audit. “The first action by this front must come with the dismissal from central government of those dozens of senior executives evidenced and denounced by the Supreme State Audit in flagrant abuse of state property and funds, and not only waiting from the State Prosecutor’s office moves,” he adds.
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Bujar Leskaj, the head of Albania’s Supreme State Audit
By Bujar Leskaj*
Within the time frame of less than two months (February-March 2018), three prestigious and credible international institutions have assessed the level of corruption in Albania’s state administration and the problems with the reform in our public administration. From the outset I must admit that these classifications disgrace all of us, the leaders of the Albanian government and other state institutions (dependent and independent), including the author of this modest article.
On March 14, 2018, the United Nations published a survey, conducted by the prestigious Gallup International, the Index of Happiness in 157 States around the world. This index contains the sub-index of perceived corruption by citizens as one of its main indicators. According to its data, Albania turns out to be the 19th most corrupt country in the world, where nearly nine out of 10 Albanians believe that corruption in the state administration is widespread. According to data, compared to 5 years ago, the perception of corruption in Albania has deteriorated, from 84.7 percent to 88.6 percent currently. Gallup measures corruption by asking directly from 1,000 citizens for each state. Among the two questions addressed to them about corruption, one goes like this: “Is corruption widespread in government, or not?”
Again in March 2018, SIGMA, a joint initiative of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the European Union (EU) for Governance and Management Support, published its monitoring report for 2017 on the progress of public administration reform in 6 EU candidate countries, including Albania. The report on “the Principles of Public Administration: Albania[1]” , inter alia, states, that “… the lack of specific rules to ensure merit, integrity and disciplinary recruitment for certain groups of employees exercising public authority and not covered by the Law on The Civil Service, following the amendments adopted in 2014 remains a matter of concern.” The Report also finds that “the percentage of vacancies has been improved, but there has been a significant decrease in the number of participating candidates[2],” which means that there are fewer candidates applying for an open position, a direct result of the perception of citizens that it is impossible to gain work in an institution of public administration, without having any connection or acquaintance with senior executives. In most of the senior positions in the government, the SIGMA report describes, the employees are appointed through the use of extraordinary procedure.
On 21 February 2018, the world-renowned nonprofit organization Transparency International, one of the most trusted in measuring corruption in 180 countries, placed Albania at the 91st place among the 180 countries, or eight positions below the previous year. The indicator of this organization is considered globally as the most accurate indicator of the spread of the phenomenon of corruption in a particular society, as it refers to its perception from the citizens themselves. The idea circulated in some segments of our public administration that “corruption has diminished but the perception of citizens has lagged behind” is not true, as citizens face it every day with the state administration and they are able to evaluate its behavior better than all our state institutions. That is why Transparency International measures corruption anywhere in the world directly from citizens’ responses to its questions. Its indicator is the most renowned and internationally accepted indicator today.
The same organization mentions in its assessment of Albania that our country’s path to EU membership is hampered by slow progress in the fight against corruption and organized crime.
Such ratings and considerations should make us all more responsible and conscious, as we are not finding a way out to effectively combat CORRUPTION, the most corrosive element of citizens’ trust in the state. We recall how far we are to meet the 17 goals of the United Nations Agenda 2030 (the significant reduction of poverty, sustainable economic development, responsible production and consumption, responsible development of cities and their communities, qualitative education, reduction of social inequalities, etc.) and the tasks we have undertaken to accomplish as a member State of the UN in the framework of its Agenda 2030.
UN Secretary-General Mr. Antonio Guterres, on the World Anti-Corruption Day on 9 December 2017, gave the following message: “We can implement the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, only if every country has strong, transparent and inclusive institutions, based on the rule of law and supported by the public.“[3]
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I believe that the best way is to create synergies from effective cooperation between the main institutions of the State, the civil society and citizens. In this respect, we should all reflect. For example, the cooperation agreements signed among the Supreme State Audit, the Ministry of Finance and the Prosecutor’s Office in 2012, should be revitalized and target uninterrupted interaction, both with the internal audit structures and the Directorate of Financial Inspection at the Ministry of Finance and prosecutors handling cases sent by the Supreme State Audit to the Prosecutor’s office, why not create a task force to follow up referrals by the Supreme State Audit and other independent institutions.
At the Supreme State Audit, as a supreme audit institution, our role consists in providing recommendations for changes and improvements to laws and by-laws, aiming at minimizing the risk of abuse of office and budget funds, minimizing corruption and tolerance to it, avoiding cases of conflict of interest, etc.
The government should issue an order for the implementation of our recommendations by its subordinate institutions. Since 2013, this initiative is missing and has contributed to the strengthening of the culture of impunity in the ranks of the state administration
As I have mentioned in previous articles, corruption follows the formula of world-renowned scholar Robert Klitgaard: C = M + D – A
where C is corruption, M is monopoly and D the quantity that can be benefited from corruption (otherwise called discretionary power of corruption, freedom of action), while A stands for accountability.
Corruption is equal to monopoly, plus discretion minus accountability. If the activity is public, private or non-profit, corruption is likely to happen, when one has the power of monopoly over a commodity or service, as well as the power to decide if you will benefit and how much you will benefit and this one is not a responsible person.
Today, all over the world, the supreme audit institutions (the SAIs) are trying to make accountability and governance more transparent, practically rewriting Klitgaard’s equation at C = M + D – (A + T) ,
where the new element “T”, i.e. transparency, together with the increase/strengthening of accountability, strongly contributes to curbing and further defeating corruption in state activities.
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From this point of view, we at the Supreme State Audit see the mission and role of our auditors today in a way that by closely monitoring the financial management process, the state auditor is likely to discover deficiencies and deviations from standard state management procedures by identifying those irregularities that perpetuate corruption.
Although as a supreme audit institution, of course we do have less investigative powers than the Prosecutor’s office or the State Police bodies, the added value of our work in finding indicia of corruption lies in our auditors’ gained knowledge to evaluate in the data and financial statements a high-risk public entity for abuse with state funds and property; the professional ability, knowledge and financial expertise that they have, also providing indicia to other institutions. In more than 900 audits that we have conducted over the period 2012-2017, we have put these audit results ”‹”‹into the service of detecting financial fraud and corruption, in addition to the primary role of counseling and the impact on improving property management systems and the use of public money. The number of criminal charges during this 6-year period has been an indicator of our work, by sending 266 referrals or indictments to the Prosecutor’s office for 847 state employees, mostly senior and middle-ranking officials, at a rate of one referral per week or an average of almost one criminal charge every three audits. We believe that those referrals, as well as entirely the audits carried out by the High State Control will provide indicia and valuable material for the new justice reform institutions, which have already begun to function, to deepen the fight against corruption (and this is good news for all institutions and citizens).
As an external public audit institution, during the past six years 2012-2017, we have oriented the audit activity towards the challenges of good governance, aiming to gain citizen confidence through an active role in strengthening accountability and transparency, as well as in deepening the war against corruption at all levels of government. Although the international standards of INTOSAI, which we are extensively applying to our work, emphasize the advisory role of the supreme audit institutions in preventing corrupt behavior and abuse of public funds, the environment in which we operate and the high levels of corruption in every cell of the country’s public administration have led us to consciously choose a balanced approach between the institution’s advisory and preventive as well as its denouncing roles.
The recent cases of Prosecutor’s office action against former state officials denounced by the High State Control, such as in the field of construction and maintenance of national roads and in the administration of state property in real estate registration offices, testify the truthfulness of the Supreme State Audit’s criminal charges, findings and recommendations. But we are fully aware that any partial action or result either by the Prosecutor’s office, the High Inspectorate of Declaration and Audit of Assets and Conflict of Interests or the Supreme State Audit will fail to effectively combat corruption, without establishing, and not formally doing it, a national anticorruption front, where the emphasis is on strengthening accountability and transparency of public institutions. The first action by this front must come with the dismissal from central government of those dozens of senior executives evidenced and denounced by the Supreme State Audit in flagrant abuse of state property and funds, and not only waiting from the State Prosecutor’s office moves.
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Considering recent reports from the European Commission, the U.S. State Department and the three indicators of Gallup International, SIGMA and Transparency International on the worrying levels of corruption in Albania, from the concerns raised by the International Monetary Fund in the concluding statement of its mission in Albania on March 20, 2018, as well as from the worsening level of the business confidence index, published these days by the American Chamber of Commerce in Albania, it is high time we boosted the fight against corruption. Alone, none of our institutions can maximize its work. The justice reform, which is a necessary, but insufficient condition to be effective in fighting corruption, the valuable expertise and contribution of international donor institutions will not be maximized without the synergy and coordination of the state institutions between themselves and with the civil society of the country, for the benefit of all citizens, and not just faà§ade public hearings. In these moments, no separate project and strategy is needed by any institution, but a national unified project, a national strategy and the creation of a unique inclusive front in the fight against corruption, where the contribution of each institution is synergized, integrated and concrete. Only then, the perception of the Albanian citizens, measured and scientifically proven by organizations such as Gallup International or Transparency International, will decrease in relation to the corruption of our state administration by strengthening the rule of law in the country.
*Bujar Leskaj is the head of Albania’s Supreme State Audit.
[1] http://www.oecd.org/officialdocuments/publicdisplaydocumentpdf/?cote=GOV/SIGMA(2017)1&docLanguage=En, page 27, third paragraph.
[2] The same, page 28, first paragraph.
