By Ibrahim Alusine Kamara (Kamalo)
A press statement released on Tuesday, 11th of February 2025, by Transparency International Sierra Leone (TISL) has affirmed that Sierra Leone drops to places backwards in the Corruption Perception Index for 2024.
TISL was joining her counterparts in Transparency International global Anti-Corruption Movement to launch the Corruption Perception Index (CPI) for the year 2024, when it made the statement, noting that this year’s CPI ranks Sierra Leone 114 out of 180 countries, and scoring 33 out of 100.
It says the 2024 CPI generally used 13 sources of data to rank and score all 108 countries, noting that for Sierra Leone, nine out of thirteen sources were used such as, the African Development Bank CPIA 2023 38/54; Bertelsmann Foundation Transformation Index 2024 34/137; Economist Intelligence Unit Country Risk Ratings 2024 18/131; Global Insight Country Risk Ratings 2023 46/207; PRS International Country Risk Guide 2024 42/141; Varieties of Democracy Project 2023 43/178; World Bank CPIA 2023 39/74; World Economic Forum EOS 2024 15/117; and the World Justice Rule of Law Project Index 2024 25/142.
According to TISL, the Corruption Perception Index for 2024 reveals most countries have made little to no progress in tackling public sector corruption in more than a decade, adding that what is more remains that over two-thirds of the countries score below 50 out of 100, which strongly indicates serious corruption problems.
Sierra Leone moves two places backwards in its score this year, scoring 33 out of 100 as against the 35 out of the 100 scores it hit in the 2023 CPI.
“This indicates corruption continues to be a major deterrent to effective and sustainable governance,” the TISL states, adding that the persistence of corruption in the public and private sectors not only inhibits the creation of an effectively functioning modern state, but undermines people’s trust in government and government’s ability to effectively deliver for its people.
“Undoubtedly, ethics, moral standards and the values of integrity, transparency and accountability have steadily declined in the society.”
TISL says if we are to make a meaningful impact to the fight against corruption and significantly improve in our CPI score, we must focus our anti-corruption efforts on improving public sector accountability and access to information, increasing legal enforcement against acts of corruption, ensuring that appointments in the public sector must be merit-based, curbing the risk of corruption in obtaining public contracts and conducting other business-related activities, including combatting corruption in the form of excessive patronage, nepotism, job reservation, secret political party funding, close ties between politics and business, and tackling corruption in the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of government.
“As we continue in the fight against corruption, we encourage public officials to show a high level of integrity and patriotism in the execution of their duties and to demonstrate the willingness to resist corruption and ensure that national development processes are effective, meaningful and productive for all Sierra Leoneans,” TISL concludes in its press statement.