Fighting Economic Crimes and Corruption

Fighting Economic Crimes and Corruption

Fighting Economic Crimes and Corruption

January 19, 2011 – The Kosovo Police Directorate for Investigation of Economic Crimes and Corruption now operates with a new organizational structure. The centralization of this directorate has greatly influenced the avoidance of long reporting procedures and the hierarchical basis is significantly simplified.

Centralization as a bright side also has the concentration of resources, not only human, but also of various technical-technological equipment, which should be used during and after the end of operations from this directorate.

Based on the new organizational structure, various objectives are foreseen to be met by this directorate. The Action Plan for European partnership clearly sets out the obligations and objectives that are foreseen to be met by DIECC, to complement the legal and political vacuum in implementing certain policies of this directorate, which are given as a prerequisite for Kosovo’s integration into European structures. Despite the clarity of obligations and objectives, the issues still remain to be met. Compared to last year, Law on Police is at a better implementation stage.

The gradual transfer of responsibilities of the Financial Intelligence Center from EULEX to Kosovo authorities has affected this aspect. This law is enriched by laws and regulations. One of the weaknesses highlighted is the lack of information of the judicial police within the Kosovo Police, where this has led to stagnation in the lack of commentary (explanatory document), which would explain and comment on certain parts of the Law on Police, Criminal Procedure, etc. However, in the questionnaire realized with RIUECC, it is noted there is an explanatory manual of laws, but that is not sufficiently professional and sufficient for replicable laws.

The Strategy for fighting economic crimes regulates the coordination of the Police with other relevant institutions, such as: Customs, Prosecution, Courts etc. many of the interviewees have noted that there is good cooperation with the relevant institutions, but that the problem remains the absence of prosecutors in cases of raids by DIECC. The European Partnership Action Plan envisaged that within DIECC there should be professional training which would serve to increase the professional capacities of this directorate. The lack of such training is noticeably noticed.

Despite the ongoing training, the biggest problematic is the removal of staff from work, this adds to the need to accept new members and at the same time need them to resume from zero with relevant training. At this stage there is a need for budget, and unfortunately, the directorate notes that there is a noticeable budget deficit. The resignation of personnel undermines the professional upgrading of directorate and regional units.  As the need for new staff increases, there is also a growing number of nonprofessional employees in this directorate, and even there have been cases that in this directorate are employed also people who have completed only secondary education. This defect is directly related to the lack of a strategy in the Kosovo Police, which strategy would seek to maintain the staff and at the same time maintain the appropriate professional level within the KP structure.

Regarding capacity building, in the regional units for investigation of economic crimes and corruption there is a notable lack of not only staff, but also basic technology devices such as night beds, GPS devices, and other information technology tools, even in some regions these units have no office. Until today, RIUECC emphasize that donations were not provided by Kosovo Police, but only by ICITAP.