The report ensued as a result of the conclusion of the fourth month operations of the Pay No Bribe (PNB) online reporting platform. The report stated that out of 79.9% of the respondents submitted claimed that they were paying bribe to public officials and 48.7% of the aforementioned amount indicted the police force.
The PNB responses cover the last quarter of 2016 and a total of 7,027 reports received from the public during the above mentioned period tantamount to 79.7%, while 5,602 confirmed paying bribe; 12.5% – 885 reported that they were not paying bribe and 7.7% -540 the reported stated to honest and credible public officials.
“however, immediately under half 48.7% of the respondent reports indicted the police force, 23.2% accused health officials; 22% point the finger at the educational sector officials; 4.6% accused electricity officials and 1.3% indicted water sector officials”, as the report revealed.
The PNB Platform happened to be one of the president’s recovery priorities to improve democratic good governance in the public sector, funded by the government of Sierra Leone and UK Aid and led jointly by the Anti Corruption Commission and the Office of the Chief of Staff.
Explaining the negative impact of corruption in the country, the Chief of Staff in the office of the president, Saidu Conton Sesay submitted that corruption remained ensued to be significant challenge to national development.
“It diverts resources that should go into health care, education infrastructure and erodes trust in public institutions” he noted.
The Chief of Staff underscored that the PNB system really essential because it shined spotlight on the trends and patterns within MDAs so that they could direct their resources more efficiently towards developing robust responses against institutionalized corruption.
The Director of National Anti Corruption Strategy NACS in the ACC and Programme Manager for the PNB Nabillahi Kamara noted that the general public’s initial response to utilize the PNB system was encouraging, but added that for the system to become more effective against corruption, more needed to be done to encourage the public to report public servants who asked for bribes.
The NACS Director in the ACC said the PNB main focus was to promote change within institutions, while noting that it does not target to prosecute individuals that collect bribes but instead capture trends, identified hot spots and problem areas.
Meanwhile, attempt was made to talk to the Sierra Leone Police in order to professionally balance this report, but the Head of Media Relations in the Sierra Leone Police A.S.P. Gloria Edward declined to respond at the moment as according to her the report was currently under consideration by senior management in the Sierra Leone Police.
