30 December, 2009 - Anti Corruption Commission’s (ACC) investigators and related professionals will receive a 45 percent allowance on their basic salary and 20 percent for all the administrative support staff, with effect from 1 January next year. This initiative, according to ACC officials, is expected to attract and retain people with the desired qualities.

“The risk has been finally recognised by the government after ACC desperately and persistently voiced its concern for the last three years with numerous proposals,” said an ACC spokesperson, Kezang Jamtsho.

The recent cabinet decision to pay allowance for ACC employees has come at a time when ACC is facing many challenges, the most pressing being recruitment and retention of people with the highest standards of integrity, motivation and professionalism. “Dismal response, in number and quality, to repeated efforts of the commission to recruit people in the past and the high attrition rate underpin the challenge,” stated ACC’s annual report released in November.

In 2006, the ACC office operated with 11 officers, including three commissioners. In the same year, 10 posts were advertised twice, but the response was meagre, with only two officers turning up. The response was also abysmal in 2007, as ACC was able to recruit only one officer against 13 posts.

According to the ACC report, three officials resigned from the office in 2007 leaving the office with just eight officers. After repeated failures to recruit people, as a special case, the government handpicked 13 in-service civil servants. “In 2009, 12 more officers were recruited, but yet again ACC failed to attract people with the desired qualities, thus seriously compromising its efficacy.”

Kezang Jamtsho said that two of the 13 handpicked officers resigned in July this year and one more is resigning on January 1, 2010. As of now, there are only 15 investigators to handle the corruption cases. “Looking at the present 188 pending cases with ACC, if it has to be manned by the same number of investigators, backlog cases alone could take more than seven years to complete the investigation,” he told Kuensel. ACC investigates about 20 cases a year with its small cadre.

“Fulfilling the government’s intolerant policy of “zero tolerance to corruption,” people’s expectations, meeting targets of growing work load and compelling capacity development needs is indeed a pressing challenge,” stated the report. “Under such a situation, building a strong and effective anti corruption agency that is nourished by public trust and confidence seems a far cry.”

“It would be a daunting task to build a strong and effective agency if no one is willing to come forward and join ACC,” said Kezang Jamtsho.