The United States Government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) announced in the week of November 10 that Sierra Leone’s eligibility for a compact grant funding is still under consideration until December when the country’s fate is decided. The announcement followed Sierra Leone’s less than impressive performance on MCC’s fiscal year 2014 scorecards. The statement added, “Due to the negative change in its scorecard, MCC’s Board will review the overall policy environment in Sierra Leone regarding transparency and efforts to combat corruption. This review will help inform the Board’s decision about continued compact development. To that end, MCC and the Government of Sierra Leone remain engaged in an ongoing dialogue regarding the Government of Sierra Leone’s past, current, and future efforts to promote transparency and fight corruption.”
Although Sierra Leone passed 11 out of the 20 MCC indicators, it is obvious to even the most passive observer that the MCC places extreme weight on prospective grantees’ commitment to promoting transparency and curbing corruption. Unfortunately, Sierra Leone made an embarrassing step backward in terms of combating graft during the year under review. And, in spite of what seemed like a last gasp effort to do some damage control by passing the Freedom of Information law, there is certainly a lot more that needs to be done to address the country’s biggest and ever powerful adversary – corruption.
The primary responsibility of combating graft lies with the country’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), pursuant to the ACC Act 2008 as amended. The powers of the Commission were enhanced by a 2008 amendment which gave the body prosecutorial powers, while at the same time increasing the number of corruption-related offences. In spite of the Commission’s best efforts, there are still serious gaps in the fight against corruption. It is time for the Sierra Leone Government, the Commission and the public to have a serious reflection on its strategy to find out the gaps. The fight is just not about the Commission. It is certainly a serious national issue that requires our collective efforts.
It is critical to point out that the ACC alone cannot win the fight against corruption. Unfortunately, and perhaps inadvertently, there seems to be a national assumption that the Commission can do a “lone ranger”, and independently defeat the most sophisticated adversary of our times – corruption. This is part of the reason the public never holds back in blaming the Commission whenever there is a report of increasing corruption in the country. Rightly or wrongly? The Commission has adopted a three-pronged strategy to deliver its mandate, including prevention, public education and prosecution. The three limbs of the strategy have not been fully implemented. Obviously, additional time is required to succeed, but Sierra Leoneans are getting increasing impatient with the slow pace of progress. Perhaps it time for the national strategy to be reviewed.
Prevention, as they say, is better than cure. This is perhaps where the ACC needs to do a lot more. The Commission’s prevention strategy needs some bolstering. The Commission started a Systems and Processes Review Project a few years ago, but progress is slow on this front. Apart from the fact that this project has not been rolled out to many state MDAs as necessary, it would seem that the commission has also been unable to effectively monitor the implementation of recommendations emanating from the reviews. For instance, the Commission led efforts to develop service charters for a number of government agencies, but there is little or no information regarding compliance or breach of these charters. An effective monitoring would enable the Commission and other relevant supervising bodies to easily spot anomalies or seepages and plug the gaps.
The Commission also needs to do better in terms of enforcing compliance regarding the declaration of assets by public officials. It is primarily the responsibility of public officials to declare their assets, but the Commission has a mandate to enforce compliance by, among other things, punishing persons who fail to declare their assets. There is little or no evidence of anyone ever being punished by the ACC for failure to declare their assets. The Commission must use it powers to enforce compliance. The fact that all assets declaration forms are treated as confidential material has still not encouraged our public officials to declare their assets. Perhaps we should review the law to change the confidential clause so that all assets declaration forms are accessible to the public. In fact, the ‘confidential’ clause, in my view, is inconsistent with the Freedom of Information law of 2013. If assets declaration forms were made accessible to all, it would have enabled the public to help monitor the assets and liabilities of public officials. What is the reason for treating assets declaration forms confidential when the essence of declaring assets is to promote transparency and accountability in governance? It is sad that some Members of Parliament (MPs) attempted to amend the assets declaration clause to provide that public officials will declare their assets only twice in their entire career – upon assuming and after leaving office. Parliamentarians have a massive role to play in combating corruption, but any attempt by them to weaken Sierra Leone’s anti-graft legislation would certainly represent a betrayal of public trust in the institution’s commitment to fight corruption.
The Commission’s public education strategy has been very successful. Thanks to the extensive public education efforts by the Commission, a significant number of Sierra Leoneans are now aware of the existence of an anti-graft commission. Public awareness and knowledge levels of the adverse effects of corruption are reasonably high. Regrettably, the high level public awareness has not necessarily translated into a reduction of corruption or public willingness to expose corrupt practices. How can the ACC address this gap? Perhaps the Commission needs to get the public to understand that it is only championing a national cause – a fight for the people of this country – and a fight against the enemies of Sierra Leone’s vast resources. When supporters of convicted corrupt officials boo ACC prosecutors (as was witnessed in the cases of the former Mayor of the Freetown City Council and the former Marine Resources Minister Haja Afsatu Kabba), it speaks volumes for how much work needs to be done to translate public awareness into support for, and collaboration with the Commission. It is also worth commending the Commission for decentralizing its outreach programme. Through its media and community outreach programme, anti-corruption messages are now reaching far-flung communities.
The scorecard of the Commission’s prosecution strategy is a mixed bag. While there has been a good number of high profile indictments, particularly in the last five years, the Commission has not been quite successful at sustaining convictions for some of those high profile cases. Even though no one expects them to score a 100% success rate, the string of setbacks the Commission has recently encountered should make every well-meaning Sierra Leonean wonder about the future of the Commission’s prosecution strategy. There are well-meaning people in the Commission, but it is doubtful whether the Commission enjoys the full complement of the resources and goodwill among public officials to fulfill its prosecutorial mandate. Perhaps the Commission needs to recruit additional personnel, including investigators and prosecutors, to support the efforts of its current work force. Equally, there are also serious issues that need to be sorted out with the judiciary. It is no secret by now that the Commissioner’s public comments about the judiciary have invariably offended officials of the judiciary. Commissioner Kamara says he enjoys a god professional relationship with the judiciary, although it is rumoured that there are serious cracks in that relations. Whatever the cause, something needs to be done about it. Some have suggested that some of the corruption-related cases that the Commission recently lost, appeared to be much easier to win than to lose. Let’s face it, a review of some of those decisions show how the elastic nature of the law was overstretched to reach a verdict one way or the other. Sometimes I wonder whether judicial activism is a threat or aid to combating corruption. The ACC has sometimes decided against filing an appeal, perhaps because there are genuinely no grounds of appeal or it does not feel inspired or confident to do so. Even where the Commission or convicted persons have appealed, it takes forever to adjudicate such cases. At the moment, there are many corruption-related cases on appeal, some dating as far back as 2011. In fairness, it is sometimes not entirely the fault of the courts, but the courts should receive a fair share of blame for undue delays in proceedings.
This should not deter the ACC. In fact, it should embolden its prosecutors because at it is, the public jury is out on the Commission – perhaps more so than ever before. Some things need to change, almost immediately. The Commission must be bold enough to continue combating graft at the highest level. The Commission should start paying more attention to those mining and agro-business deals. For example, ACC investigators should pay more attention to how contributions by large-scale businesses into Chiefdom Development Funds are utilized. It is only when corruption is significantly reduced at the highest level that the people of Sierra Leone can collectively begin to have a genuine share of the country’s vast resources.
Thanks to the MCC’s fiscal year 2014 scorecards, Sierra Leoneans have been once again reminded about how much work is still required to address Sierra Leone’s corruption conundrum. Clearly, the strategy needs serious reviewing. The fight requires genuine commitment at the highest level. Quick fixes won’t work. The crusade needs both a leadership and followership that truly understand the need to enforce transparency-related laws and regulations without external prompting; respect for the rule of law; and the voluntary declaration of assets. The campaign also requires an independent and well-resourced anti-corruption commission; just as it requires an independent judiciary that understands that judiciary activism could be useful in sending the right message to potentially corrupt public officials. To be fair to the ACC, most of these recommendations are outside its control, but it can still do better.