Albania’s Conflicts of Interest Chief Faces Abuse Probe by Prosecutor

Tirana, Nov 11 (Tirana Echo) – The General Prosecutor of Albania has confirmed that it has launched an investigation into Shkelqim Ganaj, Chairman of Albania’s High Inspectorate of Declaration and Audit of Assets and Conflict of Interest (ILDKP), on suspicion of abuse of power.

The Task Force Group of the Tirana Prosecution said it suspected abuse of power because, over a period of three years, Ganaj had reported no conflicts of interest on the part of any senior officials.

Earlier, the Tirana Prosecution on its own initiative registered a criminal proceeding reflecting its suspicion that the office had deliberately failed to investigate conflicts of interest.

ILDKP chief Ganaj has continually accused General Prosecutor Adriatik Lalla, who previously served in Ganaj’s position at the High Inspectorate, that the proscutor’s office does not send any high profile cases to court.

Earlier in the year during an annual reporting to Parliament in April, Mr. Ganaj pointed the finger at the prosecutor’s office by declaring that “the current state of affairs is grave because statistics show unimaginable figures, declared by high officials themselves, numbers which cannot be explained. This requires a final solution”.

The Tirana prosecutor office has reportedly seized files and asset declarations of all high officials and is looking into several individual cases of MPs in what seems to be a spectacular clash between two high state institutions responsible for identifying and charging corrupt officials in Albania.

The latest ping-pong between Prosecutor and High Inspectorate comes at a time when the latter is involved in reviewing all the assets declarations of judges and prosecutors, as part of a wider reform of the justice system in the corruption decayed Balkan country.

This is part of the vetting process expected to follow adoption of the law “on the re-evaluation of judges and prosecutors” in Albania. This law, which the opposition Democratic Party (DP) appealed against in the Constitutional Court, is also opposed by the Union of Judges and by part of the prosecutors.

Neither the prosecution of Tirana or the High Inspectorate were available for further comments.