Finance, anti-corruption and accountability in Sierra Leone

Our mission is to ensure that public resources support inclusive development, which benefits all the citizens of Sierra Leone. We are focussing on improving public financial management, revenue generation and anti-corruption efforts.

Running from March 2019 to June 2020, this project is funded by UK aid and implemented by a consortium of civil society organisations, headed by Christian Aid. Other consortium members include: Centre for Accountability and Rule of Law, Budget Advocacy Network and Restless Development.

The programme is being delivered through effective citizen engagement, data collection and analysis, and policy advocacy engagement with key government ministries/agencies and local authorities.

Three key outputs:

1. Improved public revenue generation.
2. Strengthened public expenditure management systems.
3. Oversight and anti-corruption institutions are strengthened in their ability to deliver.

Aiming to support:

• increased revenue mobilisation;
• enhanced systems strengthening to promote prudent public spending and transparency;
• improved citizens' awareness and engagement in anti-corruption efforts;
• and facilitating activities to strengthen anti-corruption institutions for the enhancement of quality service delivery.

Achievements

After 10 months the consortium has delivered key national products such as: 

• a tax perception survey
• corruption perception survey
• National Scorecard on government audit follow up
• a technical report on budget credibility
• tax waivers policy paper 
• and the first ever cost of corruption report for Sierra Leone.

We have also: 

• supported a more inclusive process for the 2020 budget, by promoting the participation of vulnerable groups
• provided technical support to the development of the national tax waver policy, which could lead to vast increases in revenue generation and improvements to the business environment, recruited and trained a group of youth accountability volunteers to support engagements, especially at community and district levels, to promote the involvement of young people
• engaged Ministries Department and Agencies of Government (MDAs), civil society organisations, citizens and media across the country on our citizen’s perception survey findings, triggering nationwide debates and response
• gained buy-in and adoption of research findings from MDAs on our citizen’s perception survey reports (tax and corruption), cost of corruption report, tax waiver policy paper and audit scorecards. 

The role of the public service is to deliver goods and services with integrity and in a way that ensures efficiency and effectiveness. The Audit Service provides external oversight on the operations of government, its management of finance and delivery of public services.

On an annual basis the Audit Service submits to parliament a report on the handling of government finances. Past annual reports highlight that there have been cash losses to the public purse worth billions of Leones. Every year, the Auditor General’s report comes up with similar findings/recommendations, however there is little improvement/follow up from MDAs to address them.

These scorecards looks to assess the issues and recommendations and check whether they are been implemented by the MDAs.

Mattia Dimoh MDimoh@christian-aid.org

Admay Gebeh-Mustapha Agebeh-mustapha@christian-aid.org