On the 25th October, the Chairman and Leader of the Alliance Democratic Party (ADP) Mohamed Kamarainba Mansaray publicly declared his assets marking the first time ever a politician has done so in Sierra Leone.
As one of the priorities in the citizens manifesto produced by 720 local organisations for the 2018 elections, they have called for public declaration of assets by presidential candidates. “If we all push, the campaign on public asset declaration will be a big changer in the 2018 elections”, Andrew Lavalie IGR Executive Director said.
A few weeks after the public declaration of assets by Mansaray, IGR conducted a survey to gauge the attitude and perceptions in 50 random communities.
The survey looked into citizen’s perception on the importance of asset declaration by presidential candidates. The study reveals “the vast majority of voters, 93%, say it is important for persons running for the presidency in the 2018 elections to publicly declare their assets”. This suggests, “voters in Freetown place a very high premium on their leaders demonstrating a greater degree of transparency and accountability before and while holding political offices”.
Further into the research, the question as to whether the declaration have an effect on voters who heard about his asset declaration, about 50% said it changed their views/perceptions about him, while 17.2% said it was insignificant because they thought the declaration was false.
“19% of respondents said Kamarainba’s declaration meant nothing to them because ‘politicians are all the same;’ a perception that reveals a generalized lack of trust in political leaders, while around, 14% of respondents said they had already made up their minds about their preferred presidential candidate and so the declaration meant nothing.
A related question asked respondents about their level of trust of Kamarainba before and after his declaration, participants indicated that his declaration resulted in an overall positive shift in perception about him as 63.1% says they did not trust him while only 31.0% trusted him.
But after his public declaration, this increased to 45% respondents who said they trusted him, nearly 15% more than before. Another 9.1% said they did not know whether they trusted Kamarainba or not.
The survey further looked into increasing demands by citizens for presidential aspirants to publish asset Lavalie said “this research provides strong support for the asset declaration request in the Citizens’ Manifesto. Nearly 90% of respondents said they would like the candidates they support to publish their assets, with more men (91%) than women (84%) calling for this”.
Lavalie said this survey is part of Standing Together Consortium project and the reason they are doing this is because around the world trust is declining between citizens and government so with the declaration made by Kamarainba they decided to follow it because not to test the veracity “whether it is true of false or real, this research is meant for us to understand the impact of that declaration”.
He said asset declaration is not about the citizens but the politicians because to increase trust between the politicians and the people is through publication of assets. Disclosing that the result of the finding have been shared with some political parties including SLPP, NGC, RUFP and Unity Party have committed to declare assets.
BM/22/11/17
By Betty Milton
Thursday November 23, 2017.