One impressive thing about Sierra Leone that outgoing United States Ambassador to Sierra Leone will take home with him, is the work of the country’s anti graft Commission, the Anti Corruption Commission (ACC).
Mr. Michael Owen made these commendations during his recent farewell press engagement.
He was asked for his take on the corruption survey conducted by the Transparency International Global Barometer Corruption Survey that rated Sierra Leone in 85% for bribery. Responding, he acknowledged that in the past three years, Sierra Leone has made considerable improvements in all the indices brought about by international organizations regarding corruption and attributed this feat to the “considerable efforts” being made the Anti Corruption Commission
He explained that corruption perception surveys are aimed at measuring corruption indices in countries around the world and that a number of internationally renowned organizations including the Transparency International, the World Bank, the Heritage Foundation are involved in the exercise.
The Ambassador noted Sierra Leone’s improvement in the past three to four years given the country’s low indices. He said the recent perception surveys would be looked at in order to identify where things may be going wrong.
“We are trying to look at all of those numbers from all of the different surveys to make sense out of them and to identify where things may be going wrong. For Sierra Leone, in the past three to four years, almost all of those indecencies have been getting better and it is moving up and improving. This is good for the country,” the Ambassador asserted.
Ambassador Owen therefore noted, “This is all because of the improvements the ACC has made in the fight against corruption in the country,” adding that the United States have been playing a role in assisting the Commission through technical support.
“We have provided a great deal of technical assistance and direct advice to the ACC. We have an adviser there now helping the Commission build its capacity. We have sent several ACC officials on advanced training as a way of developing their skills and abilities to handle corruption matters,” he revealed.
Highlighting some of the successes the Commission has registered in the last three to four years, he mentioned, the indictment of the former Mayor of Freetown, George Herbert Williams, the indictment of a Government Minister and a number of senior government officials and quite recently, the NRA/ ECOBANK alleged fraud case.
Ambassador Owen considered corruption as “a global problem” but suggested that the only way to tackle it is to first acknowledge that it is a problem and also that efforts must be made at combating it anywhere it is known to be happening.
“We are very happy to see that Sierra Leone is doing just that and the ACC is really building itself to meet the challenges of combating the menace,” he said.
By Betty Milton
July 25, 2013
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