Creating Kosovo: International Oversight and the Making of Ethical Institutions by Elton Skendaj

Author:Elton Skendaj [Skendaj, Elton]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: International Relations, Europe, Eastern, Political Science, History, General
ISBN: 9780801470172
Google: 2-1zBQAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 22210624
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2014-09-16T00:00:00+00:00

Figure 4.3. Cost of customs collection as a percentage of revenue received.

Sources: Kosovo Customs (2009); World Bank (2005).

Responsiveness and the Penalization of Corruption in the Kosovo Customs Service

As in other states, the customs service in Kosovo has a high potential for corruption because it processes taxes at the border, and its officials have strong incentives to misrepresent the goods in exchange for a large bribe. The public perception of the customs service was that it was one of the most corrupt institutions in Kosovo. According to the Early Warning Report 25 (UNDP 2009), 38 percent of the public believed there was extensive corruption in the customs service. However, when asked about their sources for evaluating the extent of corruption, 46 percent of the respondents claimed it was based on the media, and only 10 percent claimed they had a personal experience with corruption. In a recent survey conducted by the American Chamber of Commerce in Kosovo, 14.9 percent of respondents in the Kosovo Albanian business community also perceived the customs service as corrupt (Shaipi 2008, 13).

Given these data, there is obviously corruption in the customs service, but is it as high as it seems? Let us now consider the actual comparative experience of corruption in the region. According to a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2013, 29) report, only 1.9 percent of businesses in Kosovo reported paying bribes to customs officials in Kosovo, as compared to 6.5 percent of businesses that paid bribes to customs officials in the western Balkans region as a whole. According to the comparative Balkan Monitor poll (Gallup 2008), the actual percentage of survey respondents who personally gave bribes to customs officers in 2008 was less than 1 percent, the same as the average in the European Union. The same survey question in 2009 reported an even lower actual experience of bribe-taking from the customs officers in Kosovo, despite a higher level of corruption among government officials in general. Although 10 percent of Kosovo respondents reported giving bribes to government officials in 2009, only 1.5 percent of them provided kickbacks to customs officials (Gallup 2009). Therefore, the survey indicates that the actual corruption of the customs service was lower than the general public’s perception of its corruption.

The lower experience of bribe-giving cannot be attributed to the lack of contact of citizens with customs officials. On the contrary, Kosovo residents have frequent contacts with customs officials because most residents travel to neighboring countries. In addition, because the economy is based on trade, businesspersons have even more frequent contacts with the customs service than the average citizen. Therefore, the actual corruption level of the customs service is lower than expected.

Although there certainly is corruption in the customs service, a functional internal institutional mechanism has worked relatively well to control corruption. The Unit of Professional Standards of the Kosovo customs service examined complaints about possible misconduct by customs officers and disciplined the officials who abused their public position. All but two of the original thirty-seven Kosovo Albanian

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