Public officials and families declare personal assets

TIRANA, July 6 – Most Albanian media outlets on Tuesday had as their top story the declaration of the personal assets of all top politicians and officials and their family members.
That has become a normal practice in Albania in the last few years with officials forced to declare their property, cash and any asset they have in order to show their personal finances and prove they are not exploiting their official post for personal profit.
The newspapers had a wide range of declarations from showing rich lawmakers of the opposition to poor government ministers.
That is a good thing to do in this country, where corruption still remains a shortcoming in its road toward real democracy, but many Albanians still don’t trust the declarations provided by the officials.
Some politicians are showing as little as 2,000 euros of savings, when they should have more based on their salaries alone, for example.