The attrition rate within the Anti-Corruption Commission continues to increase. This has become a challenge in fulfilling its mandates to prevent and fight corruption in the country. From five per cent in 2019, the attrition rate has increased to 15 per cent. This is according to the Review Report of the Anti-Corruption Commission’s Annual Report 2022-2023. The report was introduced in the National Council today.
According to the Anti-Corruption Commission’s Annual Report 2022-2023, almost 60 ACC officials have left their jobs in the last two and a half years.
Of these, 25 left the jobs in the financial year 2022-2023.
The majority were from the professional and management position category.
“35.5 per cent of the entire ACC’s workforce has less than two years of experience in the commission. Due to this, the ACC is facing a challenge. When it comes to other agencies, they can draft annual plans and allocate budgets accordingly. However, when it comes to ACC, we cannot predict how many corruption cases will be reported in a year, and there are instances when the employees have to work in other districts to solve additional severe cases simultaneously as they work on an existing case,” said Phuntsho Rapten, Chairperson of Good Governance Committee.
In the financial year 2022-2023, the commission received more than 340 corruption reports compared to over 400 in the previous year. According to the report, this is a decline of 21.4 per cent.
Most corruption cases were reported through webmail followed by walk-in complaints and by post.
The number of corruption reports received from the known sources surpassed the unknown sources attributing mainly to the increased awareness and trust in ACC.
“Going by the agencies, ministries have the highest corruption reports, followed by gewog administration and the district administrations. Likewise, going by the offence, most alleged corruption reports are concerning abuse of functions, followed by bribery and embezzlement,” said Phuntsho Rapten, the chairperson.
ACC opened 38 new investigations during 2022-2023 in addition to 39 spillover cases.
The National Council’s Good Governance Committee made four recommendations on the report.
The recommendations include creating more awareness at the grassroots level, and the finance ministry and ACC to explore the best alternative budget allocation mechanism to sustain ACC’s efforts among others.
Kinzang Lhadon
Edited by Tshering Zam
