By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
A corruption perception survey commissioned by the Center for Accountability and the Rule of Law (CARL) has shown that 49% of people in Sierra Leone believe that corruption has increased in the country relative to the last three years.
The report, the result of a study that was completed in February as part of a collaboration involving other local and international NGOs, became the subject of public discussion this week.
CARL said the data for the study was gathered in 2019.
According to a portion of the report, “About half (49.4%) of the respondents consider corruption to have increased relative to three years back. About a third (32.9%) of the survey respondents indicated that corruption has decreased relative to three years ago.”
The report was done by CARL with support from Christian Aid, Restless Development, and the Budget Advocacy Network, with funding from DFID.
Data collected from across the country showed that 10 of the 16 districts believe that corruption indeed has increased.
The figures defy the usual political context that is reflected in most survey results. The North-West of the country is the stronghold of the opposition All Peoples Congress, whiles the South-East is the stronghold of the ruling Sierra Leone Peoples Party.
Among the ten districts, the Northern district of Bombali has 71% of people who believe the situation of corruption only got worse.
Four other districts from the South-East of the country also believed the country is more corrupt. Districts like Kailahun has 57%, Kenema 52%, Moyamba 55% and Bonthe 54% of people who believe corruption has increased.
Perhaps surprisingly, Kono, which is mostly a swing district, believe that corruption hasn’t increased. Only 22% of people in the district believe that corruption has increased over the last three years.
Pujehun gave the highest positive score when it came to the increase or decrease in corruption in the country. Some 59% of people in Pujehun believe that corruption has decreased; this is the highest score among all the 16 districts.
Across all the population demography, 75% believe that corruption is a serious problem in the country.
The report however recognized the efforts of the ACC since 2018 in tackling corruption. As a result of their work, the perception about “sacred cows” shifted in 2019, taking a downward trend.
Only 47% believed in the presence of sacred cows compared to 57% who held the same view three years ago. Nevertheless, the report states that “whiles this is an improvement in people’s perception about impunity and people getting away with corruption because of their power or connection, the rates are still high.”
Overall, poverty ranked highest as the most prevalent cause of corruption with 69%. Lack of integrity score came second with 59%, whiles 54% of people believe that low salaries is the most prevalent cause of corruption.
Wage disparity across different strata in the public sector is a huge problem that successive governments have had to contend with. In 2018 the Minister of Finance even announced the establishment of a Wages and Compensation Commission to “harmonize salaries and wages” among public sector workers.
The commission is yet to be established.
Discussions on the findings of the report have sparked a debate on the direction corruption is taking, even though there has been a seven months gap since the launch, in between which the ACC has claimed some success.
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