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The Federal Ethics & Anti-Corruption Commission is to begin the registration of government employees’ assets.
The documentation of the assets aims to ensure transparency and accountability through curbing malpractice and corruption.
Accordingly, government employees will soon have to disclose and register all of their movable and immovable assets including landholdings and debts.
Respective government employer institutions will conduct the registration of their employee’s assets and report to the Commission.
Currently, there are around 2.1 million government employees, excluding the military and police force.
Following the enactment of the Disclosures and Registration law of Asset in 2010, the Commission has been registering the asset of government appointees and elected officials, conducting 220,000 resignations so far.
Now the Commission is stating that it is ready to widen its operations, finalizing the necessary preparation to launch the registration, including the training of officers who will conduct the documentation.
While the 2010 law gave the Commission specific powers on whose asset it can register, the law gave the Commission the ability to exercise such rights on other public employees after enacting directives.
International reports by the United Nations Convention against Corruption and the African Union Convention on Preventing and Combating Corruption (AUCPCC) indicate that wealth registration and use are among the practical tools utilized to fight corruption and mal-governance.
Globally, Ethiopia has been improving its corruption index. The 2019 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) released by Transparency International placed Ethiopia 96 out of 180 countries, moving up from 114 positions in 2018.
Currently, the government is also conducting its own national survey to identify the most corruption-prone institutions and the overall level of corruption in the country.
The last survey of such kind was conducted seven years ago, which showed that corruption was the third most severe problem in the country.
The Commission is a federal agency first established in 2001 with a mandate of running the prevention, investigation, and prosecution of all forms of corruption in Ethiopia and prepares a national report on anti-corruption efforts across the country.
However, after a significant portion of its power involving the investigation and prosecution of all forms of corruption were stripped from its authority a few years ago, it currently plays an advisory role, preparing reports, receiving complaints, and forwarding recommendations.
