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TI Program On Corruption In Humanitarian Assistance Survey Report

Grantee: National Accountability Group, Sierra Leone

Date: 24th April 2006

Name of person writing this report: Salia Kpaka – Research Assistant

Contact details:
National Accountability Group
18 Dundas St.
PO Box 1312
Freetown, Sierra Leone
+232 22 240995
nag@sierratel.sl
www.accountability-sl.org

1. Introduction:

In this project, we carried out a Survey on corruption in the humanitarian/relief program in Sierra Leone. We did this through the soliciting of information from humanitarian organisations in the following sectors:
• International humanitarian assistance agencies
• National/Local humanitarian NGOs
• Government Agencies responsible for humanitarian assistance
• Donor agencies
• Civil society organisations
• Media/Journalists and
• Individuals (mostly beneficiaries) with experience in humanitarian assistance programs

The survey focused on tracking the level of risks that corruption may have on the humanitarian assistance programs in the country. During the war and immediately after, there was an influx of organisations which offered humanitarian assistance such as food, clothing, shelter and micro-credits to small groups. Some of these humanitarian organisations include:
• Catholic Relief Services (CRS)
• Africaire
• Tear Fund
• World Vision
• Action Aid
• Care International
• Plan International
• Council of Churches in Sierra Leone (CCSL)
• Evangelical Fellowship of Sierra Leone (EFSL)

After the war however, most of these organisations which were solely working on humanitarian assistance (during the war) changed their operations to community development, Human Rights, and Advocacy.

2. Context:

This Survey was undertaken as a way of tracking the risks of corruption in Humanitarian Assistance. Humanitarian Assistance could be understood to be Agency – beneficiary transaction in the form of developmental projects or the distribution of food and non- food items. Developmental projects range from physical to institutional reconstruction, which are undertaken by developmental agencies and targeted to a particular set of people in a Community, without their financial contribution.

Nature of corruption in Sierra Leone

Corruption has been and still is a serious problem in Sierra Leone. It has proven a major stumbling block for the establishment of an effective and modern state in the country, increasing poverty and hindering progress in meeting the Millennium Development Goals. For example, Sierra Leone is richly endowed with natural resources – gold, diamonds, titanium ore, bauxite, rutile, iron ore and fertile agricultural land – yet has been classified by the UNDP Human Development Index as the least developed country in the world for the last four years. The level of corruption is nearly impossible to assess, but it is safe to say, based on our own survey evidence as well as the work of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), that corruption is endemic in Sierra Leone. Surveys conducted over the past five years have shown that an overwhelming majority of Sierra Leoneans think corruption is rampant throughout society and specifically within government . In 2000, a Corruption Perception Survey indicated that 94% of respondents thought corruption was widespread.

During the war and immediately after, corruption in the Humanitarian Assistance Program manifested itself in several related ways such as fake relief agencies being formed to attract donors funding. Another area where corruption seriously affected the humanitarian assistance program, especially during the war was in procurement, in which fake or sub-standard supply items (food or other materials) were distributed to vulnerable beneficiaries, with the lion share of the funds diverted to private ends. Corruption also manifested itself during registration processes, where in people, who were not covered by the program bribed field officers in order to be given tickets for food and other items, or, the actual beneficiaries would offer bribes in order to increase their supplies.

Corruption has been widely acknowledged as a principal factor in the socio-economic decay, poverty and instability of Sierra Leone , as well as a major cause of the decade-long civil war . The undermining of the state’s ability to utilize resources, collect taxes and exercise a monopoly of violence in the country is a result of the ‘personalisation’ of government and its services. The emergence of a shadow state that uses the apparatus of formal government for informal or personal uses was a key factor in the collapse of the state in Sierra Leone.

Post-war Sierra Leone, like most countries emerging from conflict, has been physically, politically and economically devastated by long years of centralised dictatorship and conflict. Political and economic institutions have been destroyed and the social fabric of society torn apart. Most of the horizontal institutions of accountability created to check government excesses have disappeared or been rendered ineffectual. Post-war reconstruction has brought together an unusually wide range of economic, political and social actors in response to the situation on the ground. However, the resources for humanitarian assistance, provided by these actors have been flowing through weak institutions and inefficient, ineffective government, national/local humanitarian agencies, public service bureaucracies and civil society groups, characterized by a lack of administrative, financial and management skills. This has resulted in enormous problems for the country and created innumerable opportunities for corruption especially in humanitarian/relief assistance programs.

Corruption in Sierra Leone has gained momentum during post-war recovery, seeping into virtually every aspect of political, economic and social life. Cultural values and expectations have become distorted, and a system of perverse incentives and behaviours has emerged. Massive corruption within all sectors of society has become a threat to the country’s fledging democracy, rule of law and the protection of human rights, economic development and national stability.

3. Project methodology and main findings:

Sample:

Questionnaires, which were developed by Transparency international (TI) were carried out in each of the seven categories slated above. For each of the six humanitarian agencies, two questionnaires were directed at senior officials with valuable experience in humanitarian assistance programs, giving a total of twelve questionnaires. The remaining eight questionnaires were directed at beneficiaries of humanitarian assistance – Sierra Leoneans, who have stayed in displacement camps and refugees from Liberia.

Methodology:

The whole survey started with a one-day training that was organised for five surveyors, who were selected from social science students from the national university with some experience in surveys. The training featured discussions of real world situations associated with effectively carrying out the research: problems likely to be encountered and how to deal with them. The questionnaires, as designed by TI, focused on three indicators: the first part focused on the general risks of corruption in the humanitarian assistance program – the greatest risks, the likelihood for particular risks to occur. The second dealt with personal experiences, and the third solicited recommendations on how to reduce these corruption risks in the humanitarian assistance program.

4. Survey findings:

Based on the responses from the survey, one can safely assert that corruption is highly prevalent in the humanitarian assistance programs as it is practiced in many ways. Regarding the risks of corruption in the relief process, the respondents brought out the following as greatest risk areas:

Procurement – a huge risk of corruption in the humanitarian relief process is in the procurement process, where funds for purchase of supply items are squandered. At the end, the materials bought will be either inadequate or sub-standard.

Registration – it was clearly pointed out by most of the respondents especially the beneficiaries that a great risk lies in the registration process through bribes being solicited from beneficiaries by local supply agents to inflate the number of persons to benefit from relief items.

Logistics – the supply process itself creates a very big opportunity for corruption in the humanitarian relief program. Corruption normally occurs among field officers, who, most times use fake supply cards (ghost beneficiaries) to amass supply items meant for beneficiaries. These diverted food and non food items are later on sold to the very beneficiaries (those who can afford to pay the cost). There are also instances of sexual harassment of vulnerable female beneficiaries by local supply agents in order to be given priority during supply of relief items.

Funding – another biggest risk area of corruption in the humanitarian assistance program is linked to funds. The fact that huge sums of money are disbursed to local NGOs to implement humanitarian assistance projects creates a big opportunity for corruption in the entire process, as these funds are at times diverted to private ends instead of being used for their actual purposes. Most local NGOs which apply for humanitarian assistance funds operate fake projects.

Regarding the portion on the questionnaire that solicits information about personal experiences, only few respondents from international, national/local, non-governmental, or donor agencies accepted having any personal experiences with the corruption examples. This, we believe, was for fear of being associated to any form of corruption, especially in a situation when every body is making frantic efforts to minimise the malaise. On the contrary however, the respondents from the media, civil society, and the general public (beneficiaries), were more willing to discuss corruption issues and were confident enough to give examples of personal experiences of corruption. Some of these examples include:
• Sale of supply items
• Soliciting and acceptance of bribes
• Sexual harassment
• Inflation of beneficiary numbers
• The existence of ghost beneficiaries etc

Corruption Complaint Mechanism:

While all the respondents accepted that corruption complaints can be channelled through the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), the media, and the police, the willingness of the afore-mentioned to implement effective measures to minimise, if not eradicate corruption is yet in great doubt. However the respondents still believe that the following are successful measures to minimise corruption risks in the humanitarian assistance/relief program:
• The enactment of the Anti-Corruption Act – 2000
• The establishment of the anti-Corruption Commission -2002
• The writing up of the National Anti-Corruption Strategy (NACS)
• The involvement of civil society organisations like NAG in corruption related issues
• Reports of surveys focussing on the extent and consequences of corruption etc

5. Constraints:

One major problem we encountered conducting the research concerns respondents prioritisation of the research project. It has been time consuming to set up appointments and they have often been rescheduled in the last minute. This is because the commitments and responsibilities of the respondents are so plenty and important to them that any extra activity such as ours (focussing on corruption) is often considered as a complete waste of time. Not withstanding these, however, our determination and cajoling techniques helped us solicit the required information.

Another serious problem we encountered regards the late arrival of funds to conduct the survey. Up till the moment of writing this report, our bank has still not confirmed receipt of the funds. To conduct the survey therefore against the slated timeline, we had to loan funds from other donors, which will have to be replaced upon receiving the funds.

6. Conclusion and Recommendations:

The conduction of this survey has gone a long way to expose corruption and the risks it bears on the humanitarian assistance/relief program. This therefore offers to all civil society organisations, local and international NGOs, government and donor agencies, the responsibility to institute effective monitoring and accountability measures to reduce the risks of corruption in the humanitarian relief program. It particularly creates an opportunity for NAG, which is the country’s only civil society organisation exclusively working on corruption, to extend its monitoring tentacles in the humanitarian assistance/community development projects in order to expose these risks and thus reduce the level of corruption in not only the humanitarian assistance/relief programs, but in other developmental projects in the country.

In order to achieve this, the following recommendations have been proffered by both respondents and survey enumerators:
• Effective monitoring/accountability and reporting mechanisms to be put in place to ensure efficiency and proper management
• Strengthening of civil society capacity to act as effective watchdogs
• Periodic evaluation of projects through surveys and focus groups (survey should also target beneficiaries to get their perceptions)
• There should be complaints mechanisms to report corruption practices
• There should be the willingness to punish individuals that are found guilty of corruption, no matter who they are
• There should be community participation in humanitarian assistance programs to foster local ownership

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