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Integrity in Reconstruction

Sierra Leone Executive Summary Introduction Siaka Stevens, president of Sierra Leone from independence in 1968 until 1985, once said of the corrupt practices that thrived under his rule: “A cow grazes where it is tethered.” Little changed in the years after his departure. Corruption remained rampant and played a large part in the erosion of the government’s legitimacy, which led to the outbreak of war in 1991. The war devastated what was already a failed state, leaving this small, resource-rich country ranked as the second least developed nation in the world. Parliament was turned into a rubber-stamp for the presidency, increasing politicisation of the civil service and causing the breakdown of the army, police and public education system. Meanwhile international criminal syndicates were set up in the country to pursue the lucrative diamond trade. UN peacekeepers took three years to assume control of the country and finally subdue rebel forces in 2002. Presidential elections swiftly followed, won by Ahmed Tejan Kabbah of the Sierra Leone People’s Party. After five years of comparative peace, Kabbah stepped down after presidential and parliamentary elections in 2007. However, anti-corruption measures swiftly put in place as part of a reconstruction effort by the donor community, led by the UK, have still to make a substantial impact. The Sierra Leone Anti-Corruption Act was passed in 2000, creating the first dedicated Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) in West Africa. But, despite extensive financial and technical support, it took another five years for the national anti-corruption strategy to be officially launched. In fact, the influx of aid money and the lack of robust institutions have paved the way for further opportunities for corruption. The situation was initially exacerbated by efforts to co-opt leaders of the Revolutionary United Front (RUF), which fought against the government in the war, into the political process. The 1999 Lomé Peace Accord originally granted RUF leader Foday Sankoh responsibility for natural resource management, including the diamond industry, in the new government. The agreement subsequently collapsed when the RUF returned to open conflict.

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Efforts to prosecute high-ranking civil servants and politicians have failed to secure any jail terms to date, a state of affairs not helped by reliance on the politically appointed Attorney General to prosecute cases. So far, external pressure from donors has not been able to help deliver a functioning corruption control system. The ACC is widely regarded as biased, and has been severely undermined by a lack of political backing and a lack of the resources needed to carry out its tasks effectively. There have been successes in community-driven development programmes, some of which contributed to increased integrity. There remains little strategic coordination between these successes and the anti-corruption agenda, while the media, though large, has been restricted by threats of legal action when attempting to tackle high-level corruption. Priority areas Public monitoring of integrity among political leaders, public officials and business people needs to be implemented, while a code of ethics need to be drawn up for those in public life. The time is for action, rather than awareness raising of a population well aware of the problems it faces. A public sector procurement code needs to be devised and training conducted to ensure tendering for government contracts is open and honest, that those involved in corruption are blacklisted and/or sacked and that those reporting corrupt practices to the authorities are offered protection. Greater assistance must be provided for integrity institutions such as the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), the Ombudsman and the Auditor General. Their capacity needs to be enhanced through specialized staff training and programme support and their independence strengthened. The government and donors need to get behind constitutional and legislative reforms to improve oversight capacity and implement changes, such as those proposed by the Law Reform Commission. A transparent and fair mechanism must be established to fix pay and guarantee stability of tenure across the entire judicial system, if high calibre, independently-minded personnel are to be recruited to the judiciary. Public officials should be required to declare their assets and identify possible conflicts of interests to better ensure they do not misdirect public spending, while the disciplinary measures for failure to do so should be made clear. Corruption: the context Before the war, corruption was largely explained by “neo-patrimonialism” – the distribution of state resources by public officials to their friends, extended families and supporters. By 1991, when civil war broke out, corruption had become so widespread that the state could not perform even its most basic functions. The arrival of

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international crime syndicates in search of diamonds provided more opportunities for corruption. “Blood diamonds” were exchanged for arms and ammunition -- a trade that took a high-profile global campaign to rein in. In 2006-07, annual aid disbursements were an estimated US$270 million, with the UK the biggest bilateral contributor with around £40 million (US$80 million). The size of these aid flows, and the absence of a working local institutional infrastructure means the agenda for national development after the war has become determined by donors rather than internal stake-holders. Most of these aid flows are tied to products and services of donor governments rather than being directed towards building the skills of Sierra Leonean counterparts. Parliament, public services and the judiciary lost their independence during the war, while the army and police became undisciplined and uncoordinated. As a result, reconstruction required a complete overhaul of the institutional infrastructure, with the necessity to place anti-corruption measures at the heart of this effort. Donors identified corruption as a key issue early on in the rebuilding process and directed substantial resources to one of Africa’s largest anti-corruption commissions, police reform, the national security agency and the Ombudsman’s office. In the post-war environment, significant cases of corruption have come to light in areas such as funding for the 2002 elections, the mining sector and private sector contracts involving the Ministry of Education. Current anti-corruption activities Pre-war anti-corruption legislation proved largely ineffective against the background of failing institutions and growing unrest. Donor funding and input underpins current activities. The UK’s DFID (Department for International Development), UNDP, USAID, various EU-based organisations and the World Bank institutions are among the main contributors. Donor funding has been instrumental in developing the capacity of the ACC to probe corruption in both the public and private sectors, despite question marks over its impartiality. The government secured the services of two judges and prosecutors from the Commonwealth, backed by DFID, and recruited four consultants for the Law Officers Department dedicated to corruption cases. Integrity officers have been appointed by the ACC and placed in ministries and other institutions identified as corruption hot spots. These include: education, health, agriculture, the judiciary, local government and mineral resources. All this should improve the independence and impartiality of the ACC, giving it more credibility. Donor funding of capacity building in institutions such as the police, the judiciary, local government, the ACC, the attorney general’s office and the army has had some encouraging results. However, corruption remains rampant, even in government departments. A big factor in failing to stamp it out is a continuing “conspiracy of silence” among those who know of corrupt practices, but fail to notify the authorities.

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The National Anti-Corruption Strategy (NACS), launched in 2005, provides a new framework for combating corruption, aiming to involve all levels of society. A working group of civil society organisations (CSOs), under the leadership of the National Accountability Group (NAG), was set up to monitor the implementation of the NACS, but so far, little has been achieved. The only significant development has been the appointment of the integrity officers. Changes in the leadership of the ACC have stymied progress. The National Directorate Development Assistance Coordinating Office (DACO) was created by the government to improve the coordination of aid, which has been fragmented. However, it was established without a national policy on aid coordination. As one government official put it: the donors “ask you to take the driver’s seat, but they retain the steering wheel”. Progress towards a National Integrity System The Reconstruction National Integrity System (RNIS) provides a framework to assess the impact and legacies of conflict, the multiple political and institutional issues, and the role of donors. Sierra Leone has many of the basic components for a working NIS in place, but the capacity of institutions remains weak and too much power remains in the hands of central government. The ACC: Given adequate resources and support, both political and institutional, the ACC has the potential to carry out its mandate. To date, political suasion and the lack of investigations being processed have impeded progress. The replacement, in 2005, of former ACC commissioner Val Collier with Henry Joko-Smart, who is considered closer to the upper echelons of government, indicated a lack of resolve to stamp out high level corruption. According to DFID, the ACC’s main financial backer, only 15 of the 64 cases examined by the ACC in 2006 were pursued, none of them involving senior government officials. The commission constantly runs up against resistance from the Attorney General’s office and the inability of the judicial system to process the cases brought to it. The ACC has been most successful in raising community awareness of corruption issues, which is the most straightforward of its tasks. Government: Power remains concentrated in the hands of the president. Although there is no formal law on asset declaration, ministers are expected to declare them on their appointment and the ACC has recommended that conflict of interest legislation should be enacted. This could significantly improve abuse of power over government procurement. The international community also has a major role to play in pressurising the government to tighten up procurement procedures, given most of the funds involved are dependent on external aid. Political parties: All major political parties suffer from poor governance and a lack of transparency regarding funding. The opposition, fragmented along tribal and regional lines, is a mostly ineffective force against the ruling party.

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Civil service: The civil service is massively politicised and opaque. It has no code of conduct or asset disclosure requirements. Poor pay and conditions provide little motivation for change. The judiciary: Judicial institutions are gradually becoming better equipped to uphold the justice system, but capacity remains at a low level. The posts of Attorney General and Minister of Justice are held by the same person, hampering impartiality. There are only 250 lawyers in the country and very few judges and other legal staff. Magistrates have very restricted jurisdiction and there is little law reporting. A dual legal system between customary and statutory law further complicates the picture. Auditing: Audit reports on government institutions are frequently late, with some institutions not having been audited for a decade. The latest report from the Supreme Audit Institution (SAI), made in 2002, concerned the period 1996-99. This makes revelations of wrongdoing largely meaningless as miscreants are usually long gone by the time their activity is unearthed. The SAI’s capacity is being beefed up, but problems remain over its lack of independence from government. The Accountant General is accountable to the Minister of Finance. Local government: More integrity may develop in local government, as moves to decentralise come into force, putting an end to over three decades of ineptitude and weakness. There are several hurdles to overcome in this process, not the least of which is damping down friction between competing local factions. Elections: The government-funded National Electoral Commission (NEC) proved its worth by organizing the 2002 and 2007 parliamentary and presidential elections, both of which garnered a high voter turnout and were regarded as mostly free and fair. This success has been a major factor in ensuring relative political stability. The police: The police force is gradually becoming more transparent and accountable. Moves have been made to decentralise it and decrease political influence. Funding and know-how from DFID, in particular, has improved the capacity of the police to process legal cases, enabling the force to tackle a rise in post-war crime by unemployed military veterans. Civil society: Fast-proliferating CSOs could act as highly effective anti-corruption watchdogs. They can, and do, propose new laws, but they lack adequate resources at present. Of the 500 CSOs in the country, very few are dedicated to integrity issues. Media: Freedom of expression among some 40 print and 32 electronic media has been limited, despite the creation of an independent media commission. Government bullying in the courts and elsewhere has tried to deter some high-level corruption investigations, though the outgoing Kabbah government adopted a somewhat more positive attitude to censorship in its later years.

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Effectiveness of anti-corruption reforms There have been some notable successes in tackling corruption against a difficult background. The ACC, CSOs and the media have done much to raise public awareness of the urgency of the problem. There has however been very limited success in bringing corruption cases to court. The gradual decentralisation of power to individual ministries and local government is likely to make anti-corruption measures more effective, as the power of vested interests at the centre diminishes. The donor community prioritised integrity reform, but the government has proved reluctant to throw its full weight behind it. This has been the case especially where preventative, rather than just punitive, measures are needed. Overall the desired impact has not been achieved nationwide, mainly because of the relative paucity of funds from both government and donors and the confluence of powers. The lack of financial backing, executive influence and the weakness of relevant institutions, such as the judiciary, have limited the scope of ACC activities, which need to have national reach to make a greater impact. DFID and others are currently working to build up the country’s capacity in the areas of investigation and prosecution, providing funding and training for new judges and prosecutors and improvements in police training. The future of the ACC hangs in the balance as it struggles to justify its funding against poor performance. Full cooperation from Sierra Leone’s political leaders and independent, transparent integrity institutions are vital if such measures are to make an impact. However, above all, there is a need to increase both public pressure on and incentives for the government to act against corruption.

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Case Study Summary The SABABU Education Project The SABABU Education Project was created in 2002 to rehabilitate basic education vocational skills training throughout Sierra Leone. The project encompasses the construction and rehabilitation of school classrooms, the purchase and distribution of school textbooks and vocational skills training, including teacher training. The project is a collaboration between the government, the World Bank’s International Development Agency (IDA), and the African Development Bank’s African Development Fund (ADF) and was originally scheduled to end in December 2007. The use of significant donor funds for this project – $20 million each from the IDA and ADF – has merited careful scrutiny, given the reputation of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology for deep-rooted corruption. Unfortunately, studies of SABABU and the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology have revealed a litany of mismanagement, corruption and inefficiency. Primary school textbooks procured for the project have found their way on to the black market and are sold on the streets. Meanwhile, in the schools where the textbooks are supposed to be distributed free of charge, they are being sold to parents desperate to educate their children. School structures and equipment do not meet quality standards. This reflects wider problems in the education system. State primary education is supposed to be free in Sierra Leone, but parents are often asked to pay for “mandatory” private lessons for their children after school, in order to gain the education they should be receiving during the day. In some instances, parents have even been asked to foot the bill for classroom chairs and desks. Private schools offer better education, but their fees are beyond the reach of most Sierra Leoneans. The capacity building aspect of SABABU could be one of its most valuable aspects, providing the means to train local staff, which in turn would be able to pass on skills to other Sierra Leoneans. In the past, expatriates filling this role have left a vacuum behind after their departure. However, SABABU has struggled to make an impact and is way behind schedule in achieving any of its goals, threatening to become a major embarrassment for the government, the IDA and ADF.

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National Accountability Group (NAG) Partnered with the Transparency International Global Network, Tiri Network of London and the Anti-Corruption Commission in Sierra Leone, National Accountability Group (NAG) is a Sierra Leonean civil society membership organization dedicated to achieving greater accountability, transparency and integrity in private and public affairs, curbing corruption and holding national as well as local government accountable. This is achieved through the implementation of four core programs which include: Evidence-Based Research, Public Education and Awareness Raising, Monitoring and Institutional Capacity Building.

Tiri Tiri is an international NGO based in London that partners with civil society, governments, and business to create networks of committed change agents dedicated to strategic integrity reform. Tiri is an incubator and facilitates innovative reforms and provides a critical learning platform to disseminate cutting-edge experiences. This paper is the summary of a series of eight studies of post-war reconstruction countries commissioned by Tiri and funded by the Norwegian Ministry for Foreign Affairs, the Foundation Open Society Institute and the Canadian International Development Agency. All studies are accessible on www.tiri.org Eight local policy centres undertook research using a shared terms of reference. The countries covered are Afghanistan, Bosnia Herzegovina, Kosovo, Lebanon, Mozambique, Palestine, Sierra Leone, Timor Leste. The research is the basis for an advocacy and monitoring agenda to promote integrity in reconstruction both within the eight countries and internationally. Together, these groups form the Network for Integrity in Reconstruction (NIR). All material contained in this survey was believed to be accurate as of 3 January 2007. Every effort has been made to verify the information contained herein, including allegation. Nevertheless, Tiri does not accept the responsibility for the consequences of the use of this information for other purposes or in other contexts.

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