President Bio’s Office is the Third Most Corrupt Institution in Sierra Leone – a Survey Says
By Abdulrahman Koroma (27/09/2020)
The Office of the Sierra Leone President Julius Maada Bio has been shamefully described as the third most corrupt institution in the country today.
A recent survey has recorded this embarrassing corruption description of the Office of the Presidency, an SLPP government that continues to publicly boast about fighting corruption since they occupied the seat of power at State House in 2018. (Photo: State House, the seat of power is the 3rd most corrupt institution in Sierra Leone).
The respectable Afrobarometer group, a Pan-African, nonpartisan survey research network is reported to have done the survey. The outcome ranks the Office of the Presidency as the third most corrupt institution in the country at 38% just below the Sierra Leone Parliament at 41% in second place. The top-ranking most corrupt institution in the country is the Sierra Leone Police at 61%.
This startling report that has shamed President Bio and his SLPP government was launched on Tuesday, September 15, 2020, just a few days before the ruling government released its own much-trumpeted Commission of Inquiry COI White Paper. The SLPP party White Paper released on Thursday, September 24 has indicted many former APC government officials for malpractices.
Although the demand for government accountability is increasing in Sierra Leone, very few citizens believe MPs are effective in holding the president and government to account, according to Afrobarometer. “The study also found that Member of Parliaments are among the least trusted officials and are widely perceived as corrupt,” the report added.
Meanwhile, some key findings in the survey noted that for seven in ten Sierra Leoneans i.e. 71%, it is more important to have a government that is accountable to its citizens than one that “gets things done” and the demand for accountable governance has increased by 28 percentage points since 2012 around 43%.
“Similarly, six in ten citizens around 60%, expect parliamentarians to provide financial assistance for individuals in their communities, but only 13% say MPs “sometimes” or “often” give out resources to help community members,” the report maintained. (Photo: President Bio needs to reverse the corruption embarrassment).
Afrobarometer provides ‘reliable’ data on African experiences and evaluations of democracy, governance, and quality of life. It did conduct face-to-face interviews in the language of the respondent’s choice with nationally representative samples. Seven rounds of surveys have been completed in up to 38 countries between 1999 and 2018. Round 8 surveys in 2019/2021 are planned in at least 35 countries.
The Afrobarometer team in Sierra Leone, led by the Institute for Governance Reform, interviewed 1,200 adult Sierra Leoneans in March 2020. A sample of that size yielded country-level results with a margin of error of +/-3 percentage points at a 95% confidence level. Previous surveys were conducted in Sierra Leone in 2012, 2015, and 2018.
Running up to the 2018 presidential elections, the ruling SLPP new direction manifesto promised to not only treat corruption as a governance issue but as a national security threat – a message President Julius Maada Bio echoed in his inaugural address on 12th May 2020.
“During my campaigns and since my election, I have said time and time again that this is not going to be the business-as-usual politics and governance of the state. My new government is therefore launching three peaceful democratic wars: first, a War on Indiscipline; second, a War on Corruption; and third, a War on Poverty. These peaceful democratic wars on Indiscipline, Corruption, and Poverty will define my tenure of office, and I am determined to deliver on my promises,” he said.
Political observers have however seen the blatant hypocrisy being shown by the ruling SLPP government when it comes to fighting corruption. Within a week in September 2020, the Presidency was dubbed the third most corrupt institution in Sierra Leone by the Afrobarometer survey. It happened at the same time the SLPP COI has come out with the White Paper against officials of the former APC government of President Ernest Bai Koroma. Which party is more corrupt than the other in this circumstance?
