By Sitta Turay
Social media is called the people’s media. It has radically transformed the traditional functions of the conventional media understood to be informing, educating, interacting with and entertaining audiences. Sierra Leoneans have become very much involved with the affairs of their country better than when there were no social media.
Very recently a video went viral on social media, showing a road safety officer of the Sierra Leone Roads Safety Authority, apparently receiving a bribe from a rickshaw (Kehkeh) taxi rider in the heart of Freetown. This exposed clearly how petty bribery is being practiced in Sierra Leone. I understand the officer was reprimanded and could well be on his way out of that office. The reality now is that extorting money from public transport operators is common here and in many parts of Africa.
Most of the time the talk around bribery and corruption is directed at public officials. Yes, it is true that public officials are the prime targets for the reduction of bribery and corruption. I raised this issue with the Commissioner of the Anti-Corruption Commission, Lawyer Francis Ben Kaifala, and this is what he told me: “our primary mandate is for public officials…in a more limited sense. There are certain offenses for which private officials or persons could be charged”. That means the ACC was created purposely for public officials that are in charge of huge sums of state money.
It is understandable to make stringent laws to serve as a check on public officials. It is also very necessary to sit on the tails of these government/public officials because the higher risk that public money could be tampered with lies within public offices. There is no one denying this fact. For far too long Sierra Leoneans have been robbed off and are in fact still being robbed off their resources by public officials. That has to stop and that is the reason the ACC boss has said that his mandate is to go after these men and women that are massively squandering public funds.
Since the arrival of the New Direction Government, with its almost overwhelming focus on fighting corruption, Sierra Leoneans have heard and read a lot about how corrupt the state had become under Ernest Bai Koroma, former president and now leader of the opposition All People’s Congress. When the reports of the Commissions of Inquiry are finally laid before the nation, the extent to which the line between public and private money had become blurred, will be determined and exposed. So far the ACC is doing a fantastic job by chasing these corrupt officials despite the fact that I do not agree in totality with the pattern that the commission appears to have adopted (that is asking people convicted of fraud to refund the money and go home). I appreciate the effort to retrieve the cash but leaving out custodial sentences is what many Sierra Leoneans find difficult to accept.
When people like senior public officials are caught stealing from the national purse, they should be punished with a jail term in the same way petty criminals are packed into Pademba Road Correctional Center. That will send the required signal to others who see public office as money bags to steal from.
A country that has been ravaged this much by corruption cannot afford to create the impression that recovering some of the money is the only way to fight corruption. The doors of Pademba Road Correctional Center must remain open to receive convicted thieves.
But looking at the issue of corruption elsewhere, takes us to the world of petty bribery with all its excruciating effects particularly on the average Sierra Leonean. As little as five thousand Leones is creating hardship on the people because that is the least amount a traders’ union volunteer will ask of a street trader. That street trader is just squeezing to survive even when they are somehow breaking the law. It is the same thing with young men and women on motorcycle taxis (Okada) and rickshaw (Kehkeh). Regular traffic police officers and sometimes Operational Support Division (OSD) officers seem to be doing nothing but chasing these Okada and Kehkeh boys and girls all day and night. Yes, it is very true that these guys are most of the times reckless when riding but that should not be used as a point for bribery.
The people that suffer the most under the yoke of petty bribery are commercial drivers. They are harassed by the Police, Road Safety Officers, Customs Officers (at the borders) and their own Drivers’ Union leadership. Sometimes one begins to wonder how they break haven let alone stay in business. This class of drivers can be considered a “necessary evil” because of the way they themselves extort their passengers, but that should not make them targets of official extortion.
Yes, revenue from taxation is important to finance economic development in Sierra Leone but the process of collecting it is always marred by corruption from some of the collectors in certain agencies. The main obstacle to the enhancement of tax collection is extortion and bribery by the collectors and their accomplice taxpayers. It is not a hidden fact that petty corruption or bribery erodes tax payers’ morale. The effect of tax morale is more severe in countries where fewer people are affected by petty corruption and becomes insignificant by petty corruption and becomes insignificant if extortion of bribes is particularly prevalent.
The neighbouring country of Guinea is in serious economic difficulty and part of the reason for that is that bribery has become almost a way of life. Very few people and institutions pay taxes in Guinea. There is a very good effort by the government to meet the development needs of the country but the people are not used to or even willing to paying taxes. For that reason, it is government that bears the heavy burden caused by the budgetary shortfall to meet the service delivery needs of the people.
In Guinea fewer people pay electricity and water bills but there is a reasonably good supply of electricity and water. This attitude of not paying for national services, like water and electricity and resorting to blackmailing politician with votes, has crept into Sierra Leone and is being perfected
Petty bribery is eating into the fabric of Sierra Leonean society these days. This is the scary part of this attitude in this New Direction dispensation. When, for example, commercial drivers are asked to pay bribes, they in turn inflate their charges and the passengers do the same to their customers when the merchandise goes to the market. Try standing surety for friends or relatives to bail them out of the courts and you will be forced to do some petty bribery just to secure their freedom. How much more traumatic can that be?
There is no gainsaying that petty corruption should be tackled with the same vigor that Ben Kaifala has expended in dealing with the big public officers who have corrupted the public trust. This is expressed in slogans like “the gron dry”!!! (meaning, times are hard). The political consequences on governance can result in voters rejecting the party in governance. The Pay No Bribe campaign is a good effort at dealing with this problem but it will take a long time for the effect to be felt across the nation.
During the Ahmed Tejan Kabba administration, some significant achievements were made in respect of reducing petty bribery. At some point traffic police officers were ordered not to wear uniforms with pockets. That was implemented to prevent police officers receiving bribes. It was a very costly thing then to receive bribes because many officers lost their jobs. May be the Pay No Bribe campaign should be more aggressive than that now.
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