Key Note Speech by Francis Ben Kaifala Esq., Commissioner of the Anti-Corruption Commission of the Republic of Sierra Leone at the End of Year Engagement to Mark the One Year in Office of the Honourable Chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission of Nigeria at the ICPC Auditorium, Plot 802, Constitution Avenue, CBD Abuja, Nigeria, on 17th December, 2024.
Introduction
Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, please permit me to stand on existing protocols.
However, let me congratulate my brother on his one year in office which is already bringing in remarkable results for this great Country – Nigeria. We in Sierra Leone see Nigeria as a dear Big brother from whom we have benefitted a lot including the blue-print and design of the legal and regulatory regime of our campaign against corruption since 2000 to date.
According to the United Nations, Africa loses approximately 88.6 billion dollars to corruption every year.
Globally, the International Monetary Fund says that 2 trillion dollars is wasted every year on bribes alone. The World Economic Forum sees these as conservative figures as it is “difficult to quantify economic consequences of graft, [which includes] lost investments and a reduced tax base.”
However, to put into perspective the enormity of this amount, the United Nations estimated in 2015 that, 116 billion was needed to wipe out hunger and this would be achieved within a decade; 8.5 billion dollars needed to eradicate malaria; and 26 billion dollars needed to provide basic education to all children. All of these put together are far less than what we lose to corruption even by conservative estimates.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) states that public revenues are usually “siphoned off from schools, roads, and hospitals to line the pockets of people up to no good.” Corruption continues to pose existential threats to our growth, security, economy, peace and all other developmental aspirations of the continent. This is sad for a continent – especially the Sub Saharan part of Africa - which has the largest number of people living in extreme poverty.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) singled out corruption as one of the barriers to the attainment of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). “Under conditions of diminished State capacity, nations fail to eradicate poverty, address hunger, secure good health care and high quality education for their citizens, guarantee gender equality and other human rights, reduce inequality, and so on,” the organisation notes.
UNODC outlines the adverse effects of corruption to be “economic loss and inefficiency”, “poverty and inequality”, “personal loss”, “intimidation and inconvenience”, “public and private sector dysfunctionality”, “failures in infrastructure”, “rigged economic and political systems”, “increasing polarization and unrest”, “armed conflict and atrocity crimes”, “climate change and damage to biodiversity”.
To avert the atrocities caused by corruption, there is always the need to wage a war against it. In Sierra Leone, we have a multi-prong approach to the fight against corruption, which involves public education, prevention and enforcement, which encompasses intelligence, investigations and prosecution.Public Education involves educating the public about the dangers of corruption and the need for its eradication.
With this, our various teams of public educators organise community outreach meetings, radio and television talk shows, customized meetings, produce newsletters, post on social media, etc to reach out to the people of Sierra Leone on issues of corruption and the work and activities of the Commission.
Prevention is the work of addressing systems and procedural weaknesses in our institutions, especially public revenue-generating and high-spending ones. In collaboration with the leadership of the institutions, we conduct systems and processes reviews of the institutions in order to tackle the weaknesses and opportunities that cause corruption and other administrative malfeasance to thrive in the institutions.
The enforcement arm of our fight involves conducting both covert and overt operations to nab individuals suspected of committing acts of corruption. When suspects are apprehended – or invited- on corruption allegations, they are investigated by our investigators. From the investigations stage, the file is sent to the prosecutors who will form an opinion on the matter. If the evidence meets the prosecutorial threshold, then we file an indictment in the High Court.
We have used these strategies over the years in our anti-corruption campaign and it has brought us the remarkable success including jumping 22 places upward in the TI index from 130 in 2017 to 108 in 2024. We have also passed the MCC Control of Corruption Indicator for straight 7 years consecutively with over 70% each year since 2018 to date; we were failing at below 50% in 2017. Afrobarometer surveys have confirmed corruption prevalence has reduced from over 70% to below 40% in recent years. And the Mo Ibrahim index indicates Sierra Leone among 7 most improved countries Africa for transparency and accountability.
However, self evaluation of our work helped us realise that we needed to make corruption a high risk and low return venture. We saw the need to introduce a strategies that will be more beneficial to the State and People of Sierra Leone, and this involves recovering misappropriated and stolen funds and assets.
According to the UNCAC Civil Society Coalition, assets recovery “refers to the process by which the proceeds of corruption transferred abroad are recovered and repatriated to the country from which they were taken or to their rightful owners.” The problems with Assets Recovery According to Transparency International, “asset recovery has very limited success compared to the assets stolen and hidden. Estimates of total global anonymous and potentially illicit wealth range from US$7 trillion to US$32 trillion (around 10% of total global wealth). Only US$2.6 billion in illicitly acquired wealth was frozen and a meagre US$423 million returned by OECD countries between 2006 and 2012.”
Generally, across the globe, there are many factors hindering the recovery of assets. The World Bank states that there is often the lack of the required political will to prioritize the recovery of stolen assets due to political, bilateral and economic considerations. Coupled with this are human rights considerations which cause States to put legal impediments that make the process very slow and onerous.
There are also communications barriers, sometimes caused by lack of knowledge about the agency or official of a particular country to direct your request, and their inability or unwillingness to act on the request.However, there are practical steps being undertaken at the global stage to address some of the challenges above. Interpol, for example, has developed an initiative “to trace, seize and return stolen public funds to the country of origin.”
According to the organisation, the aim is “to support asset freezing, and the seizure, confiscation and recovery of stolen assets…[as well as] secure exchange of sensitive information among the focal points from anti-corruption and asset recovery agencies.”
For this, it has set up the Global Focal Point Network which is made up of law enforcement agencies, judicial bodies and governmental anti-corruption institutions.The objective of recovering stolen funds and assets is part of the mechanisms to ensure that the corrupt are held accountable, but more importantly to ensure that the State and the People get their resources back. This is why the assets recovery mechanism has to be robust, aggressive, persistent and holistic. And every step of the way should be guided by the law and international best-practices.It is the case that all countries have their respective experiences when it comes to whether or not more attention should be focused internally or externally to recover stolen assets.
However, considering the enormous challenges (some of which are highlighted above) in recovering assets from outside the borders of one’s country, it is very important for much more focus to be diverted internally instead, as a huge volume of stolen public funds and assets are most times hidden internally. As the space for moving wealth externally gets more and more tighter within the banking and global fund system, focusing internally has been doing us better.
According to the World Bank’s ‘Asset Recovery Handbook’, “one of the first considerations in an asset recovery case is the development of an effective strategy for both obtaining a criminal conviction (if possible) and recovering the proceeds and instrumentalities of corruption.” The handbook further outlines the processes involved in asset recovery:The first of the processes involved is “Collection of Intelligence and Evidence and Tracing Assets”.
Here, law enforcement agencies use their intelligence and investigations officers and networks and conduct both covert and overt operations to collect very important information related to the asset. This helps to identify the asset and trace its location and possible movements. In some cases, like in the conduct of searches of premises, seizures, etc., there may be the need to obtain a search warrant or court order. The investigating institution should plan very well in a way that such authorizations do not serve as an impediment to the exercise.
“Securing the Assets”. The essence of this is to secure the “proceeds and instrumentalities subject to confiscation…to avoid dissipation, movement, or destruction.”“International Cooperation”. This applies where the asset is located outside the territorial borders of the investigating agency. Where this is the case, the investigating agency will require the assistance of counterpart agencies of the country the asset is located in a bid to confiscate the asset and help with its repatriation.
Where the asset is located internally, it requires working in collaboration with partner agencies like the police, financial intelligence agency, the banks the funds are held (if it is money) and the central bank, etc. “Court Proceedings”.
In some jurisdictions, the recovery of assets through “confiscation, compensation, damages, or fines” requires a court order. “Enforcement of Orders”. Enforcement of an order by the institution that obtains it takes effect after it has been granted by the court. Where the asset is outside the jurisdiction, the institution will use the order to seek for its repatriation through mutual legal assistance. The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission of Nigeria benefitted from such assistance from the London Metropolitan Police in the case of Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, former Governor of Bayelsa State, from whom 17.7 million US dollars was recovered. Sierra Leone has benefited from such assistance when two luxury government vehicles were misappropriated by a former government minister who sold them in Guinea. “Asset Return”.
This involves returning the confiscated asset to the State. In Sierra Leone, funds forfeited to the State are returned to the National Consolidated Fund. Sometimes, this may involve returning the asset to the victims of the fraud, as we have done many times when confiscated items are returned to the victims who are mostly government and private agencies.In 2019, the Anti-Corruption Act, 2008 of Sierra Leone was amended to further strengthen our work. The Anti-Corruption (Amendment) Act 2019 provides stiffer penalties for those convicted of corruption, and also provides a clear legal framework for the Commission to recover stolen public funds and other resources. We needed to go after the cash and other assets which are proceeds of corruption. We needed this because we know that cash stolen is often transformed into assets.
As one prominent blogger, Andrew Marshall, puts it, there are many places corrupt people hide their money, including private bank accounts and luxurious assets such as mansions, yachts, cars, jewelries and art. So, we needed to go after these assets as well through a non-conviction assets based recovery system, which is consistent with the Anti-Corruption Act 2008 (as amended in 2019. To pursue this path, we must have made the determination through our non-prosecution policy not to send the matter to court, but rather pursue “Alternatives to Prosecution” or “Alternative Disposition”, which involves “circumstances where a prosecutor decides not to charge, but instead, refer the offender to other forms of punishment. Examples include but are not limited to: restitution, cooperation agreements, and asset forfeiture.” Forfeiture means to “lose the right to property including any property due, owing or belonging to or held on behalf of the offender…” Restitution is a “financial reimbursement by the offender for loss or damage to any public property as a result of misappropriation of public or donor funds or from any similar source, and shall include any interest charges the government institution accrued.”
Cooperation Agreement, on the other hand, refers to “an agreement between an offender and the Commission wherein the offender agrees to … respond truthfully and completely to all questions,… attend all meetings, trials, and other proceedings at which the offender's presence is requested by the Commission… produce voluntarily any and all documents, records, or other evidence requested by the Commission… disclose the identity of all conspirators known to the offender… and disclose to the Commission the existence and status of all money, property, or assets, of any kind, derived from or acquired as a result of…the offender's illegal activities… “Under our non-conviction based assets recovery model, we normally pursue –to our advantage- a blend of restitution, cooperation agreements, and asset forfeiture. But it does not end there, as the objective is to make corruption unfashionable, we make sure that the corrupt pay a very heavy price.
Consistent with section 7 (1) (b)(ii) of the Anti-Corruption (Amendment) Act, 2019, and as an additional punishment –where the individual is a public officer- the Commission will also bar them from holding public office for a period not less than three years. While recovering assets from the corrupt, it is also essential to think of third parties with potential legal interests in the assets to be confiscated. According to the World Bank handbook, third parties with such interests “are entitled to notice of the proceedings and the opportunity to be heard.” This is important because “confiscation extinguishes all rights in the asset, some additional form of notice is generally given to the population-at-large through newspapers, legal gazettes, or the Internet.”
In our most recent case in Sierra Leone involving one Abdul Salim Mansaray, almost USD $2Million of public revenue funds while working for a private financial institution, we made sure we confiscated all the funds in his bank accounts. Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, if, as the Encyclopedia Britannica puts it, punishment is “the infliction of some kind of pain or loss upon a person for a misdeed”, then the system of asset recovery intends to do just that, as the asset recovered is one that the corrupt permanently loses or forfeits.
During this process, where restitution is invoked, the corrupt individual suffers further loss as he is made to not only forfeit the asset, but also made to pay interest up to the amount he may have accrued from the stolen asset.
It is also the case that the recovery of asset often warrants huge media coverage, which further damages the reputation of the corrupt individual.
More importantly, for developing nations like ours, assets recovered (especially where huge funds are involved) it means such funds will be assigned for the provision of social amenities for citizens.
Congratulations once again Mr. Chairman. May you and your team continue to represent the people of Nigeria well in this journey to make corruption expensive and unprofitable through robust asset recovery regimes and drives.
I thank you all!
