Sierra Leone News

Posts Tagged ‘corruption’

In case you haven’t heard, Mr Tejan cole has resigned his position today as the Head of the ACC (Anti Corruption Commision)

This is a tragedy for Sierra Leone – a country riddled with bribery and all forms of corruption,

hearing of which will make your ears tingle! YES, it’s even official, Sierra Leone is more corrupt than Nigeria…if you don’t believe me click here to see what I’m saying.

Having said that, a lot is being done to reverse, this dreadful image of this beloved country. I can reliably inform you that, quite apart from the various government officials and individuals that are being hauled to court by the ACC, different arms of the government are implementing systems designed to stop the onslaught of corruption.

For instance, last week, we went to the port to collect our stuff and much to our surprise, a new system is in place now. (read about our previous experience here.)
All monies are now being collected directly by Ecobank directly into bank coffers so the port officials/employess no longer handle money. This is a step in the right direction and other departments like SierraTel, NPA etc are doing the same.

Sure I can’t list 10 other things they can do to make it better but this is not the place.

The fact is, while these new changes are good, the fight is far from over. When people are used to extorting money from other people as a way of living, when one avenue is stopped a new one emerges. And we saw that at the quay last week. (I’ll write about the new corruption tactics in a future post)

There may be a myriad of reasons why Mr Tejan Cole is resigning. So far no reason has been given, it could be personal, it could be moreon a matter of principle, who knows Fighting corruption is a hard and one cannot give favours to anyone. Here in a Sierra Leone, I can imagine, it takes its toll rather quickly.

Whatever it is, I wish him well, and hope we get someone just as passionate to fight corruption and bring a good name and to the country once again.

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Since 1995, Transparency International has published an annual Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) ordering the countries of the world according to “the degree to which corruption is perceived to exist among public officials and politicians”. The organization defines corruption as “the abuse of entrusted power for private gain”

The higher a country’s score, the less corruption there is. New Zealand ranks No.1 overall with 9.4 points. For Africa, Botswana, ranking at No.37 with 5.6 points, is the least corrupted country (kudos to them) It’s worth of note that there is no African country in Top 36.
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This is very difficult for me to write but needless to say, for varied reasons, I need to pen it down.

My goods arrived and I was notified by the shipping agent to collect it. Now you may ask what goods I imported. The answer is very ordinary everyday goods and provisions for our personal use. Due to the high cost of goods here in Sierra Leone, it’s best to import even simple things like toothbrush! yes you have to believe me – Simple cornflakes will set you back $5 or more / Le 20,000 (I’ll do a pricing page here soon so you know what I’m talking about).

Now back to the main subject of my post today. The trip to the Quay was harrowing, being passed around from desk to desk, making payments for simple forms that I believe should be available for free.

There’s no clear public statement showing how much should be paid for which type of good conveniently leaving room for manipulation. As a result one is left at the mercy of whoever you meet that day. By the time I made the last round, I’d paid more than Le1.2million.

Now I can hear you say, “what’s wrong with that?” Well nothing, except when I received a receipt of ONLY Le200,000.oo right at the exit! In fact, it was squeezed surreptitiously into my hand in such a way that before taking a look, I  wondered why the guy was acting so shiftily.You can appreciate that by this time(after 3.00pm) I was so tired all I could think of was getting away.

Now when I think about it, I see how corruption is robbing this country!!! If what I paid was right, then the government should receive all the Le1.2 million but with an official receipt of only Le200,000.00, I can imagine that’s all it’ll receive. So where did the rest go to?

>>Heck, is Salone going to continue to shamefully beg for money from foreign donors whilst this low-down dirty behaviour is tolerated? The whole customs sytem needs some serious overhauling to cut down corruption to minimum.

If attitudes need changing, surely this is one place to do it!

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