Albania CPI 2006 Progress but corruption still remain the in the most highest levels Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index

Albania ranked on 111 place scoring 2.6

15 countries up from CPI 2005

Today in 163 countries including Albania, Transparency International published the Corruption Perceptions Index that could be defined one of the most reliable and uncial corruption measurement tools all over the world.

“Corruption traps millions in poverty,” said Transparency International Chair Huguette Labelle . “Despite a decade of progress in establishing anti-corruption laws and regulations, today’s results indicate that much remains to be done before we see meaningful improvements in the lives of the world’s poorest citizens.”

The CPI published this year become more reliable this survey because it includes more resources (5 resources) for Albania comparing to the last year.

Actually the change in the ranking is justified with the change in the scoring from 2.4 in 2005 in 2.6 in 2006.

Last year Albania was ranked in the bottom of the European list of countries including in the CPI. This year Albania leaves behind countries like Russia, Belarus, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. Meanwhile TI observes that countries in our region such as Czech Republic, Slovenia, Croatia and Turkey not only score much better than Albania but made significant progress comparing to the previous year.

Ranking of Albania in the same place with Laos, Yemen and Zambia reflect the negative corruption situation in the country and the perception of corruption as a real and severe problem for Albania.

Despite the slight progress Albania remain in the zone of countries where corruption traps millions of people in poverty. This situation is favored even from the tolerance of the justice system scoring very negative records of punishing statistics. There is not yet in Albania any evidence of a high level official (minister, Member of Parliament, mayor, chief of party, chairperson of any constitutional body) convicted and sentenced from corruption.

Thus, we recommend to the government, parliament, prosecution office, courts and other bodies legally duty-bound in the fight against corruption.

• Preparing a long-term national strategy in preventing and fighting corruption;
• Strengthening of penal policies against the subjects that commit corruption related criminal offences and encouraging the denouncements against corrupted officials;
• Conducting a radical and immediate reform in judiciary and prosecution office that are the two most directly responsible bodies in the fight against any form of crime;
• Intensification and aggravation of sanctions and wider range of punishment;
• We estimate that only the increase of the transparency in the public and justice administration, purging of the administration, judiciary from the corrupted officials, judges and prosecutors and their conviction could make a quality improvement in the process of establishing of the rule of law and ranking of Albania among other European countries that aspire to access in the European Union.