Sometimes, speaking out about injustices can cost you your job. While being suspected of abusing it can get you a promotion.
Ermal Kutllovci, an official at the Ministry of Industry, Entrepreneurship and Trade (MINT), was dismissed from his job after he reported a suspected affair with state reserves. Meanwhile, Irfan Lipovica, who was arrested on suspicion of misuse in the same affair, was rewarded with a higher position.
Kutllovci, the state reserve official at MINT, had written to oppose the process of supplying basic products in 2022, warning Minister Rozeta Hajdari that her actions and silence were in violation of the Basic Law on State Reserves of Goods. To which he said he never received an official response.
Instead of legal protection as a whistleblower, he was punished with dismissal, with the justification, among other things, for "disrespecting hierarchy" and using "derogatory and unprofessional language" towards the minister and other cabinet personnel.
But Kutllovci described the decision as a political order imposed by pressure from Minister Rozeta Hajdari.
"Today, the political order of Minister Rozeta Hajdari was absolutely ignored by the disciplinary committee, which issued a scandalous decision to dismiss her from the employment relationship, of course an arbitrary decision dictated and imposed by unprecedented political pressure," he wrote.
According to him, the minister had attempted to stop him from speaking during a visit on December 11, 2023.
"My...
Federal prosecutors on Thursday unveiled charges against 11 Eastern Europeans they accused of running a sophisticated, $10.6 billion Medicare fraud scheme in what appears to be one of the largest ...