By Chernor Alimamy Kamara
For the 5th consecutive year in five years, Sierra Leone has, again, progressed upwards in Transparency International’s Global Corruption Country Rankings, moving from 110 in 2022 to 108 out of 180 countries surveyed in the 2023 Transparency International Corruption Perception Index (TI-CPI) published on 30th January 2024.
A press release issued by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) immediately after the report was published indicated that Sierra Leone also increased its 2022 score from 34 (thirty-four) to 35 (thirty-five) in 2023, “which is again above the sub-Saharan average, and the highest the country has ever recorded since the CPI rankings began.”
It noted that in five years consistently, Sierra Leone has moved 22 (twenty-two) places upwards on the CPI, from 130 (one hundred and thirty) in 2017 to 108 (one hundred and eight) in 2023.
The just-released CPI reveals that Sierra Leone continues to make remarkable progress in the World’s most respected corruption watchdog’s assessment and rankings and now leads 72 countries in the global campaign against corruption, including 31 African countries.
Among the 31 African countries Sierra Leone defeated in the CPI are; Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Cameroon, Uganda, Kenya, Angola, Madagascar, Mozambique, Niger and Libya.
According to the report, this year’s CPI shows mixed results in Africa, with significant improvements in a few countries. It however stated that most African countries experienced stagnation, maintaining the region’s consistently poor performance, with an unaltered regional average score of 33.
It noted that nonetheless the mixed results, Sierra Leone performed better than the Average Score in Sub-Saharan Africa for the fourth year with a score of 35 in 2023, and has consistently improved in the past four years.
The ACC recalled that Sierra Leone has been outstanding in its Score in the ‘Control of Corruption’ Indicator in the Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) Scorecard, with consistently excellent scores above 70% in 6 consecutive years.
The Commission’s release highlighted that similar exponential jumps have been recorded in other respected global corruption measurement institutions like Afrobarometer which confirmed that corruption prevalence has considerably reduced from 70% in 2015 to 40% in 2020, when the last survey was conducted.
It concluded by reassuring all Sierra Leoneans of the Commission’s continued and consistent determination to ensure the country continues to perform favorably in National, Sub-regional, Regional, and Global anti-corruption governance indices.
The Corruption Perception Index is an annual survey used by Transparency International, the leading global civil society watchdog on the global fight against corruption, to assess comparative perceived levels of public sector corruption in countries across the World.
Copyright © 2024 (Politico 31/01/24)
