Albania president says officials hide wealth

TIRANA, July 12 – In what seemed as a new move by the country’s President Bamir Topi officials were accused of hiding their property and wealth in foreign bank accounts.
“We learn the wealth of public officials in coffee discussions and scandals,” said Topi, adding that was a great concern for the international community present in the country.
Topi said that they had information some officials had hidden their wealth in other countries, in the form of bank accounts.
Prosecutors launched a fresh probe into the declared wealth of former Defense Minister Fatmir Mediu, who is being under investigation for the March 15 Gerdec blast. They said that Mediu had failed to fully declare his assets, though nothing official had come out yet.
Topi said that the media could play an important role to investigate such allegations and those data could be well used by the prosecutors to launch probes.
Some thousands of public employees are obliged to declare their wealth annually. But often a transparency office has discovered some of them have hidden property and income.