The Anti-Corruption Commission received over 340 cases of corruption in the financial year 2022-2023. According to the ACC’s annual report, the reported corruption cases are mostly regarding abuse of function followed by bribery and embezzlement. Ministries had the highest number of corruption cases followed by gewog and district administrations.
According to the report, the commission received 106 reports of abuse of function followed by 26 cases of bribery and 18 cases of embezzlement.
From that, 203 reports required further actions including 53 which qualified for investigation.139 reports were dropped.
According to the report, the number of cases qualifying for investigation is a substantial increase compared to 2021-2022. Moreover, the report stated that none of the corruption reports lodged by unknown sources qualified for investigation.
Ministries constituted the highest number of corruption reports which is 39 followed by Gewog administration and district administration with 26 and 20 cases respectively.
After the enactment of the Civil Service Reform Act, the education and skills development, and industry, commerce and employment ministries had the highest number of corruption reports.
In the meantime, the report stated, that for the first time in four years, the corruption reports against the Gewog administration witnessed a substantial dip.
According to the report, this could be attributed to rigorous targeted advocacy and thematic sessions conducted for Local Government functionaries towards enhancing transparency, integrity and accountability measures.
With regard to the district administrations, the highest corruption reports were received against Paro followed by Dagana.
The commission also received 12 referral cases from the Royal Audit Authority related to suspicion of corruption offences.
The cases were reported mostly through webmail, followed by walk-in complaints, post and via Juenlam ACC which is a mode of reporting to ACC through WhatsApp and WeChat.
Tashi Yangden
Edited by Tshering Zam
