Poor country with the rich politicians
Kosovo is the poorest country in Europe, but its politicians with their wealth may be in...Photo 1/2
Photo 2/2Kosovo is the poorest country in Europe, but its politicians with their wealth may be in strong competition with European entrepreneurs.
They became rich without running big business since Kosovo is economically very poor and unemployment is over 45% of the total population. Anti-Corruption Agency that has the mandate to oversee the wealth of high public officials has published a report of assets and noted that Kosovo politicians are getting richer.
From what is seen in the report of their assets one can notice that local politicians are richer than Kosovo with its financial reserves.
The wealth of senior Kosovo politicians is estimated in hundreds of millions of euros, including real estate, shares in various companies, cash money and luxurious cars. While Kosovo state money held by the State Central Bank does not exceed 150 million euros, this amount of money is exceeded only by two politicians.
On top of the list of rich politicians is the leader of the Alliance New Kosovo, Behgjet Pacolli, who is also deputy prime minister, with 176 million fortune, followed by Ramiz Kelmendi, deputy of the Alliance for the Future of Kosovo and the owner of the chain of ETC hypermarkets with 56 million euros, LDK parliamentarian, Hashim Deshishku, with 13 million euros, the parliamentarian of "Vetevendosje", Florin Krasniqi, with an estimated fortune of 10 million euros. But millionaires have become some politicians who became rich after not more than two years of being parliamentarians.
The assets of Adem Grabovci, head of ruling party (PDK) caucus in 2012 has reached over 1.6 million euros. Real estate of Grabovci is estimated 1 million 630 thousand euros, cars of brands Audi A6, BMW and Golf 6, 21 thousand euros in cash in banks. His family annual revenue is around 30 thousand euros. Grabovci had been considerably poorer in 2007. He then reported a flat worth 120 thousand euros, and a car worth 12 thousand euros. The fortune of Grabovci was ten folded in the last five years.
Kosovo is known as one of the countries with the highest level of corruption in the world. The European Union has repeatedly warned the Kosovo leadership that they should in the first place combat corruption. Declarative is that they all do such a thing, but practice proves otherwise. Running business in Kosovo is very difficult because of the monopoly that have idiotic companies connected with politics. Although there have been years that EU mission EULEX functions in Kosovo, however this mechanism has not yet shown strong teeth against the corrupt. And it appears this is because the corrupted are strong politicians that hardly anyone can deal with them.
Kosovo has the functional law on declaration, control and origin of senior public officials’ wealth. Responsible for its implementation is the Anti-Corruption Agency. Its director Hasan Preteni says the law has some gaps because it has not got a single clause reading that the Agency or other institutions could deal with the origin of the increased wealth without any convincing evidence.
Assembly and Government, comprised of politicians, have left it truncated. Even though the law is called " The law on declaration and control of the origin of the assets of senior public officials," it has no clause mentioning the control and origin of the property, and even its seizure if illegally obtained.