RFE: Some Serb List Officials Receive Double Income

Serbian list (BETA/Armenija Zajmi Besevic)

According to Radio Free Europe (RFE), the majority of officials of the Serb List, the leading Serb party in Kosovo, have at least one job in Serbia and another in Kosovo, which means that they receive two salaries, and although the law demands that they report all income to both the Serbian and Kosovo anti-corruption agencies, most of them does not. 

“Although there are other Serb List officials who also hold dual positions, which is information publically available on the official web pages of [various] institutions and companies, [the names of officials in question] are not in the public database of Serbia’s Anti-Corruption Agency,” RFE reported in the evening on Aug. 11. 

The executive director of the CiviKos platform, Donika Emini, told RFE that the double salaries of the Serb List officials were “the result of lack of cooperation between the Kosovo and Serbian anti-corruption agencies,” and added that both sides were aware of “the phenomenon.” 

Emini believes, she said, that the matter in question is political in nature and that the two sides have been turning a blind eye to the fact that the officials of the largest Serb party in Kosovo had not been reporting all their income to the two anti-corruption agencies as required by law. 

Zlatko Minic, an associate of the Transparency Serbia NGO, agreed with the assessment that the double salaries are a political rather than legal matter.