When Safet Berisha, the Head of the Legal Department at Kosovo’s National Audit Office (NAO), would send all audit reports to the State Prosecutor’s Office for further investigation, often nothing would come of it. All that changed in 2018 with the assistance of USAID’s Transparent, Effective, and Accountable Municipalities activity. Working to build the Anti-Fraud Unit from scratch and training provided with USAID’s assistance, Safet began filtering public procurement cases for potential fraud before sending them along with evidence to the State Prosecutor.
Under Safet’s leadership, the NAO began submitting to the State Prosecutor only high risk cases that have evidence of fraud which dramatically increased the chances that the cases will be properly investigated. Feeling proud and empowered by the transformation of his department, Safet explained, “Thanks to USAID, we now can identify and report misuse of funds, while enforcement institutions can ensure the rule of law and sanction the misusers. The establishment of the Anti-Fraud Unit was vital for improving the coordination and communication with the responsible enforcement institutions.”
Since its establishment, the Anti-Fraud Unit has reported a total of 191 cases to the Kosovo State Prosecutor for further action, some of which have already resulted in the arrest of the misusers. Nowadays, the NAO Fraud Unit is functioning independently without any technical assistance from USAID. In 2021 alone, the NAO Anti-Fraud Unit identified more than 50 cases with fraud elements for further investigation, proving that the Unit is well-established and is sustainable even without donor assistance.
DAI for USAIDKosovo