Contribution to Anti Corruption Commission Symposium:
Bribery in Sierra Leone – The Causes, Effects & Solutions in the Agenda for Prosperity.
Miatta Conference Centre, Freetown. 12 Sept 2013.
Presentation by Dr. Omodele R. N. Jones, Founding Promoter, TINC Sierra Leone
Six questions inform any effective planning process.
1. Where are we coming from?
2. Where are we now?
3. Where are we heading?
4. Why do we want to be?
5. By when do we want to be there?
6. How do we get there?
1. Where are we coming from?
“...here the black man rules. The municipality and many of the principal public offices are in his hands. He is represented in the Legislative Assembly....More ships call at Sierra Leone than any other West African port. Accessibility to the shore, facilities for coaling, and the possession of an excellent water supply give it this pre-eminence....There is no...extortionate charge. The black boys are all licensed, and the Government has fixed the charge at one shilling. Compare this with other ports on the Coast, at Accra [Ghana], for example, where it costs nearly ten shillings to land....The...population of the colony...[is] about 78,000, and that of the protectorate about 1,500,000.” Newland (1916: 10-13).
Bribery was clearly not a serious problem. There was a clear and respected order in society. This contrasts, starkly, with a report on SL commissioned by The Independent in 2007:
“...the Port of Freetown is Sierra Leone’s economic hub...War damage, neglect and a lack of investment - combined with poor management and plain theft - had given the port a reputation for being one of the most expensive and inefficient in West Africa. Impressed by the highly successful port operations in nearby Ghana, President Kabbah turned to his near neighbour for help. The task of overseeing Freetown’s improvement and expansion was subsequently given to Nestor Galley, the Director of Ghana’s Takoradi Port.” World Report International Ltd (2007, July 21: 3).
The process of transition from a disciplined society to disorder was possibly identified in 1968 by eminent national and international scholars (Fyfe & Jones, 1968: xii) who, after a symposium on the capital, Freetown, priescently noted that:
“...The warning was clearly given – planning imposed from above can only be effective if understood and accepted willingly by those whose lives are being planned. Otherwise it generates new and worse problems... Mr S. R. Dixon-Fyle put one unanswered question into clear focus...- how are society’s rules to be enforced in the absence of an accepted sanction?...what are the society’s rules?...the organised sanctions of the past have lost their hold. Neither the strict norms of old-fashioned Krio conduct, nor the cohesive traditional bonds of the tribal communities are any longer generally accepted. It is not clear what is replacing them...”
The National Anti-Corruption Strategy 2008-2012 reported that:
“Corruption has been an established disorder, cutting across all sectors of society. People of integrity fighting to revamp uprightness are often treated as societal deviants and subjected to mockery. In fact the saying, “this man nor cam for beteh ,” has often been used to cry down men of relative integrity in society”. Anti-Corruption Commission of Sierra Leone, 2007: 4.
and, in reporting the harmful effects on social values of widespread “non-exemplary behaviour and utterance of politicians”:
“Much would normally be expected from political figures in terms of exemplary progressive views and attitudes. However, in Sierra Leone, the word “politics” is associated with not telling the truth, dodging and making promises that do not get fulfilled. Our politicians are aware of this image but they are yet to demonstrate the examples as opinion leaders that can inspire optimum public confidence. The following are examples of utterances by some high level politicians over the years reflecting their views and attitudes which are blatant endorsements and legitimization of corruption in the country:
“Den say Bailor Barrie, you say Davidson Nicol ”
“Wusai den tie cow na dae ee dae eat”
“How you buy na so you dae sell”
“Chap you chap mek you fut coba””
Anti-Corruption Commission of Sierra Leone, 2007: 13.
A final extract makes a telling conclusion on the prevalent “collapse” of contemporary “moral values”:
"Sierra Leone is experiencing a rapid erosion of ethical values. There are hardly any morally sound examples in public life to emulate especially for the present generation of young people. Dishonesty, insincerity, un-fairness, disregard for the “golden rule” (do unto others as you would want them do unto you), grabbing public property, greed and cheating are common place. Such combination of vices constitutes a negative value system that generates general apathy and self-serving attitudes and breeds corruption".
Anti-Corruption Commission of Sierra Leone, 2007: 14.
This is the base from which, in 2007, President Koroma called for ABC – Attitudinal and Behavioural Change. The Transparency International Barometer indicates that we, as a society, have not been successful in making the change demanded by the President.
2. Where are we now?
Research (Jones, 2012) indicates that we have evolved a non-civil society. The dominant political, social and economic contract that binds us all together is indicative of a form of societal madness called “Societal Cynicism” which appears to tap a cultural syndrome associated with a general mistrust of social systems and other people.
At the individual level, Social Cynicism refers to:
“a negative view of human nature, a view that life produces unhappiness, that people exploit others, and a mistrust of social institutions” (Bond, Leung et al (2004a: 553)).
At the collective level, Societal Cynicism relates to:
“a lower emphasis on striving for high performance”, which is unsurprising “if there is a general suspicion of the social system and a general expectation of negative outcomes” (Bond, Leung et al (2004a: 559)).
The problem is that this is not something that can be tackled by targeting individuals. It is a social problem that is kept in place by mutually reinforcing negative expectations. If I choose not to take a bribe, I can expect someone else to demand it. It is likely that my colleagues will not condemn the bribe taker as we are all in it together. So, if I don’t take a bribe, I will lose out. But if we all take bribes and thereby fail to collect our taxes or fail to stop wrongdoers who damage our living habitat or fail to give good education because we sell fake exam results, we all lose in the long run. The civil war did not discriminate between rich and poor. All suffered.
A society with no moral limits on what it does for money cannot sustainably develop as it cannot set and enforce standards that are necessary for development. I am locked into what scientists call a multi-person prisoners’ dilemma, where the rational individual pursuit of self interest results in disaster for all.
The water supply crisis, poor sanitation, poor health services, disastrous educational outcomes, cataclysmic deforestation, bridge collapses, cholera epidemics, slum prevalence, youth unemployability etc can all be linked to our preference for short term money gain to the individual over long term national gain to everyone.
Google: “Hardin’s Tragedy of the Commons” and look around you to seek it busily at work destroying the future of our mother Sierra Leone.
President Koroma has tried to bring ABC change, but there is no evidence of systemic, cultural change or improvement.
3. Where are we heading?
The stakes are getting bigger.
When we were desperately poor with few resources to export, a sort of bad equilibrium had settled. We were not getting anywhere, but we were not getting much worse either. Now, with China’s demand for our natural resources and the expectation of Oil, the resource available and the value of potential bribes is getting much bigger. The competition for access to these bribes will get fiercer. Ask the Kenyans, the Ivorians and the Zimbabweans! Julius Malema is just getting started in South Africa.
For all our sakes, and for the sakes of our children, we must put in place radically new systems - informed by solid research evidence - that will prevent the Fire that may Come.
4. Where do we want to be?
(a) We must not wait for international research to tell us how we are doing in making the change. We must develop and administer our own research instruments for scientifically measuring how well we are doing on our goals and related key performance indicators for breaking Societal Cynicism. As a minimum, we need to track measures of dishonesty and alienation (see Jones, 2012). We will then be able to take timely decisions to guide our strategy for culture change.
(b) We must decisively break the respect that bribery has acquired, starting from clear examples from the top of our society. Transparency in everything must be respected – from mining contracts to the basis for court judgements. A serious Freedom of Information Bill and judiciary accountability must be at the heart of that transparency. Siaka Stevens Street must be renamed to remove the undue respect accorded to one of the most morally destructive leaders that Sierra Leone has had.
(c) The Audit Service of Sierra Leone, the Government Internal Audit, the ACC, the NPPA and the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Sierra Leone (the 5 Fingers of Accountability) must be fully funded to provide robust and timely checks on all public accounts and on the procurement and implementation of contracts. The resources allocated should be budgeted on a multi-year (at least 5 year) basis and funding must be at least quadrupled (increased four-fold). A smartly designed and robustly funded Five Fingers will pay for themselves multiple times through the money saved by curbing bribery and wastage of national resources. This is not rocket science. It can be done if we take our national development seriously.
(d) The judicial assumption of innocence until proven guilty must be changed to that of guilty until you prove your innocence, for economic and social crimes that perpetuate Societal Cynicism. Public servants and private persons must be randomly selected by the Five Fingers and Professional Institutions (see below) for audit and investigation and they must be able to prove that their sources of wealth are legally obtained – otherwise the unexplained element must be seized by the State.
(e) Professional Institutions – lawyers, engineers, doctors, procurement specialists, nurses etc - must be fully funded and appropriately structured to transparently set and control standards of conduct by their members. Professional regulation must be backed up by legislation that makes it an economic crime for a professional or trade institution or its members to act in a manner that leads to loss of resources by the public purse. They will be the first level of accountability police with the ACC and ASSL being a second level.
(f) Political parties must be required to transparently account for the sources and application of their funding in accordance with internationally accepted accounting and auditing standards. Funding from foreign sources and/or foreign citizens must be banned to deter State Capture.
(g) The unprincipled competition for state resources by our various nations and ethnicities must be prevented by the serious devolution of power to the regions, with the central government being weaker than the regions. Taxes must be raised by the regions and a minority of the collection sent to the central government for common services. True accountability and strong institutions have cultural roots. That is why Britain does not need a written constitution. In a multi-cultural society, power must be focussed within the culturally homogenous regions, within which accountable institutions can take their roots. The failure to develop a common culture of accountability was spotted by Dixon-Fyle in 1968. Forty years later, it is much worse. No amount of trying to fix our over-centralised power structure which promotes bad moral values in a state of nations can work.
We are not One Country and One People. We are One Country with Several Nations with often conflicting values and priorities. Badly managed, we end up with Societal Cynicism.
5. By when do we want to be there?
These reforms must be in place by 2017 in time for the next elections and the oil and mining windfall to be successfully managed. Failing which, it will be business as usual.
6. How do we get there?
The will to change must come from all of us.
I am not optimistic. But I am convinced that Sierra Leone has the seeds of greatness locked deep within us, if only we get our governance structures and our economic and social relations to fit our realities. We were once famously great. We can be great again, leading the African Renaissance, if we look beyond our foolish, short-sighted, interests and embrace our reciprocal responsibility to our fellow citizens and to future generations. We will all be better off in a well run Sierra Leone.
President Koroma made the clarion call in 2007; and did so again in 2012 when he called for constitutional reform to deal with the challenges of ethnic division. He has correctly identified the problem and the solution. We must all support him to develop the Devolution, Accountability, Integrity and National Pride Agenda (DAINPA) that must be the foundation of the Agenda for Prosperity
.
Without DAINPA, the Agenda for Prosperity will remain a mirage.
Omodele R.N. Jones
Freetown, Province of Freedom
Sierra Leone
www.tincsalone.weebly.com
