Sierra Leone has again, for the fourth time in four years, progressed upwards in Transparency International’s Global Corruption Country Rankings, moving from 115 in 2021 to 110 out of 180 countries surveyed in the 2022 Transparency International Corruption Perception Index (TI-CPI). Since 2018, Sierra Leone has each year broken its previous ranking record in the TI-CPI with the latest being its new highest ever ranking. The country maintained its score of thirty-four (34) in 2022, which is above the Sub-Saharan average, and the highest the country has recorded since the CPI rankings began. In four years consistently, Sierra Leone has moved twenty (20) places upwards in the CPI, from 129 in 2018 to 110 in 2022. In 2017, Sierra Leone was ranked at 130.
The 2022 CPI, released on Tuesday, 31st January 2023, reveals that Sierra Leone continues to make consistent and incremental progress in the World’s most respected corruption watchdog’s assessment and rankings and now leads seventy (70) countries in the global campaign against corruption, including thirty-three (33) African countries, among which are; Kenya, Mali, Guinea, Liberia, Togo, Nigeria, Cameroon, Zambia, Mozambique, Uganda, Egypt, Madagascar, and other countries of the world including Bangladesh, Lebanon, Philippines, Yemen and Mexico.
This year’s Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) reveals that “124 countries have stagnant corruption levels, while the number of countries in decline is increasing.” Nonetheless, Sierra Leone performed better than the Average Score in Sub-Saharan Africa for the third year, and has consistently improved in the past four years. The CPI is an annual survey used by TI, the leading global civil society watchdog on the global fight against corruption, to assess comparative perceived levels of public sector corruption in countries across the World.
It could also be recalled that, in four years, Sierra Leone has excellently and consecutively passed its score in the ‘Control of Corruption’ Indicator in the Millennium Challenge Corporation Scorecard, moving from Forty-Nine percent (49%) in 2017, to Seventy-Nine percent (79%) in 2022. Similar increases have been recorded in other respected global corruption measurement institutions like Afrobarometer which confirmed that corruption prevalence in the country has considerably reduced from 70% in 2015 to a latest low of 40% in 2020.
In that regard, the Commission further reassures all Sierra Leoneans of its unwavering determination to ensure the country continues to perform favorably in National, Sub-regional, Regional, and Global anti-corruption governance indices. For further enquiries on this and other ACC matters, please contact SYLVANUS BLAKE, Public Relations Officer on +232-78-832131 or info@anticorruption.gov.sl.
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PATRICK SANDI
DIRECTOR, PUBLIC EDUCATION AND OUTREACH
