By: Martina George, Communications Officer, ACC

The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) has conducted training sessions for Ministries, Departments and Agencies(MDAs)in Bo and Kenema on the Compliance Management and Sanctions Enforcement Handbook funded by the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA). The two training sessions were held on 12^th and 13^th December, 2023 at the regional offices of the ACC in Bo and Kenema respectively.

Making his presentation at the trainings, Director of Public Education and External Outreach Department of the ACC, Patrick Sandi, emphasised the role of the Prevention Department, which he said oversees the Commission’s systems and processes review efforts. The Department, he said, also conducts examinations of public institutions and offers practical recommendations to avert corruption.

Mr. Sandi said that the Commission has made significant progress in preventing corruption through systems and processes reviews. “Nonetheless, while some MDAs have been implementing the recommendations emanating from the reviews, others have consistently disregarded the recommendations mostly as a result of a lack of administrative will, and compliance management and sanctions enforcement strategies,” he said. Mr. Sandi explained some of the contents of the handbook, which he described as providing guidelines for the implementation of recommendations emanating from systems review exercises.

The second presentation was made by the Deputy Director of the Public Education and External Outreach, Abubakarr Turay. While making his presentation, Mr. Turay said prevention is one of the most important strategies employed by the Commission to prevent and minimize the occurrence of corruption and corrupt practices. After three months of the conduct of a systems and processes review exercise, he said, the Anti-Corruption Act 2008 as amended in 2019 provides for the Commission to monitor the implementation of those recommendations. Mr. Turay said that “the Compliance Result Plan Matrix forms the basis of compliance monitoring in MDAs and also includes timelines and activity owners, progress indicators, targets, compliance risk/assumption and means of compliance verification.” He said implementation of the recommendations is normally rated ‘non-compliant’, ‘moderately compliant’ or ‘highly compliant’.

The Regional Managers of the ACC in Bo and Kenema Momodu Sittar and Peter Baio Kamara respectively gave an overview of the work of the Commission and the handbook. They admonished the participants from MDAs to pay keen attention to the presentations and follow the guidelines in a bid to improve service delivery in their institutions.