Giving an overview of the PNB programme and the various ways by which reports can be made, Michael Sesay, Head of Public Education Unit said, the PNB was borne out of a survey conducted in 2013, in which a very high percentage of respondents accepted to either giving or receiving bribe before accessing essential social services. This according to him was the reason why the UK Government through the Department for International Development (DFID) decided to support Sierra Leone through the Government in minimizing the occurrence of bribery and corruption: hence the birth of the PNB Project. He continued that the project targets six (6) MDAs which includes; the Ministries of Basic and Secondary and Technical and Higher Education; Health, the Sierra Leone Police (SLP), Electricity Distribution and Supply Authority (EDSA) the water sector-GUMA Valley Water Company and the Sierra Leone Water Company (SALWACO) and critically the Judiciary. He also noted that the project is in five districts-Western Area Urban and Rural; Bo, Bombali, Kenema and Kono. Mr. Sesay went on to explain the various methods of reporting bribery citing the PNB APP, the website and the 515 free line and encouraged the community people to make their calls within working hours 8am to 8pm Mondays to Fridays and 10am to 2pm on Saturdays.
Campaign for Good Governance (CGG) representative, Santigie U. Kalokoh, explained the meaning of bribery, giving a vivid description of what constitutes bribery. He further went on to discuss the reasons for calling the 515 free line to report. He noted that the beauty of this line is that it cuts across all networks, anonymous in nature and does not incur any charges. Mr. Kallokoh further informed the community people that they should report incidences of bribery for the development of their communities and appealed to them to take the PNB messages to their various communities. Whilst demonstrating how the PNB APP operates, the Civil Society representative took the community people through the process of reporting in their local dialect Themne and admonished them to make good use of the reporting methods in order to tackle bribery and petty corruption in their communities.
Communications Officer, Margaret Jones spoke on the conventional reporting system the Commission operates. She said that there are various ways in which reports on other forms of corruption can be made to the Commission stressing; the most important ones are the free lines Airtel, 161 and 077-985-985.
Earlier, the Village Head, H.M Saidu Koroma in welcoming the team said he was happy and appreciated the efforts of the Commission for bringing the PNB message to their steps as they have never heard about the PNB campaign.
Questions and answers and distribution of PNB materials climaxed the engagement.
