The Chairman of the Supreme State Audit Office, Arben Shehu, has stated that the employees of the Supreme Audit Office are afraid to audit the work of Prime Minister Edi Rama. During his report to the Committee on Economy, Employment and Finance, Shehu brought up the concerns of his subordinates, who have expressed that they will seek support from international institutions, so that the head of the Supreme Audit Office is given the necessary support to carry out their work without fear.
"In the letter addressed to me, it was stated that: 'I and not only I will ask international institutions to provide me personally and the Chairman of the Supreme State Audit Office with the necessary support to audit the work of the Prime Minister of the Republic of Albania, because I do not have the opportunity due to fear to audit the work of the Prime Minister.' Now, what should I do in these types of situations? Yes, these are concrete cases, I appreciate all of them. And I am saying this before you: I place myself among those individuals who, first and foremost, fear God and the implementation of the law. And until the last minute that I will be part of and lead the institution of the Supreme State Audit Office, I will lead it with maximum correctness. I say this with full responsibility and I face it at every moment," said Shehu.
The head of the SAI raised the concern after the request of socialist MP Erion Braçe, who asked him to account for the integrity and efficiency of their work. In response, Shehu brought up the case of one of his subordinates, who had audited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 2019, when Prime Minister Edi Rama also took over as Minister of Foreign Affairs, while delegating the powers to Deputy Minister Gent Cakaj.
According to the head of the KLSH, the conclusions drawn by the auditor should not have been addressed to the head of the ministry, who was Prime Minister Edi Rama. Shehu also said that the same thing has happened in other cases, where the employee, after completing the audit, was dismissed from his job.
"In relation to the audit staff: I have taken on the task and, since you consider it important and we will definitely respond to it, I have taken on the task. In the first moments, I encountered a request from an auditor, an employee, part of the KLSH staff, who expressed a concern to me in the audit work. Specifically, if you allow me to express it, I was forced to respond that he was part of the audit staff at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. At that time, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was headed by Deputy Minister Cakaj, and the auditor expressed to me the inability to address our findings and conclusions to the minister. I asked for explanations, that is, a kind of clarification of the logic of the concern that he was presenting, and he told me that it is not a problem for us to address. Because I communicated to him that he should communicate with the Secretary General and the responsible persons whom you have assessed as responsible for these findings or possible violations. I was told that the concern is not with Mr. Cakaj, but it is the lack of the possibility to transmit the findings to the Prime Minister, because he should be the leading authority in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Under these conditions, I have communicated them. Of course, these communications, despite being unusual and perhaps not normal, I, as the head of the institution, have been obliged to explain and give logic to them, with a care that is first and foremost human, then institutional, because I have it mandatory and I have done it, I think, in a complete way. Due to other situations that have occurred, not only considering this case, but different situations, the employee has left the institution. And regarding the circumstances of the departure, I am ready at the first possible moment to make available not only the practice, but to relate to you word for word the progress of the problems that he had. He has continuously sent me, let's say, various letters; I will not refer to the anonymous ones. I mean a specific case, in which he transmitted to me a kind of summary of institutional work and told me: 'I and a group will ask international institutions,'" said Shehu.
The shocking concern raised by the head of the SAI did not go down well with the head of the Committee on Economy, Employment and Finance, Milva Ekonomi, who attempted to avoid the issue Shehu was reporting on, telling her to focus on the conclusions of the 2024 report and not waste time on individual issues.
"We are not going to consider it as an object of your reporting today, but we will take this issue and discuss it in a separate meeting. Today we are asking you to report for 2024. And in the meantime, in this reporting we also have questions that we need to ask you regarding what you wrote in the report. Mr. Brace raised an issue related to the integrity of your organization. Therefore, this is not the time for us to go into individual issues, because we do not want to discuss it in individual issues. We want you to give us an explanation about integrity. And you have many questions related to integrity, such as the time of an audit, the cost of an audit when it is postponed, the work experience that people have. So I would very much ask you to have these be the criteria, because today we cannot address these issues," said Ekonomi.
But this did not stop the head of the SAI from reiterating the concern of his subordinates, but also of the SAI, which seems to indicate Albania's limping on the path to democracy, where independent institutions cannot do their job due to the fear of the prime minister.
