Aruna Lahai, Public Education Officer – ACC
The Anti–Corruption Commission (ACC) on 11th November, 2022, joined the World Bank, the National Commission for Social Action (NaCSA) and other partners in the Presidential Launch of the Productive Social Safety Net and Youth Employment (PSSNYE) Project in Kambia, following the approval of a World Bank grant to support increased access to Social Safety Net and income generating opportunities for extremely poor households in Sierra Leone.
The ACC was represented by the Deputy Commissioner, Augustine Foday Ngobie, the Grievance Redress Mechanism (GRM) Unit Coordinator, Patrick Sundufu Morovia and other staff of the Public Education and External Outreach Department and the GRM Unit.
At the launch, His Excellency, Brigadier (Rtd.) Dr. Julius Maada Bio and other speakers from the World Bank and NaCSA recognized the relentless efforts of the ACC in handling complaints from beneficiaries, stakeholders and other community members and in suppressing corruption in the SSN Project.
On a special note, the World Bank called on the ACC to continue the good work through the GRM platform so that beneficiaries, stakeholders and by extension Sierra Leoneans’ interest will be maximized in the PSSNYE Project using the usual corruption prevention strategy.
The Social Safety Net (SSN) cash transfer in Sierra Leone has been very effective in reaching the poorest families including persons with disability whose situation has been worsened by the negative impact of COVID-19 pandemic. The PSSNYE financing will build on the existing Social Safety Net Project by expanding the coverage of the program and contribute towards improving the access of poor households to food, health and education services, particularly for women, youth and persons with disabilities.
The project has five components which include: provision of economic inclusion support to extremely poor households; productive labour – intensive public works and life skills support for youth;green public works in urban areas; employment and entrepreneurship support for youth; systems development, institutional strengthening and project management support; and contingent emergency response component.
The PSSNYE is a five - year $ forty (40) Million Dollars Social Protection Intervention Project funded by the Government of Sierra Leone, UNICEF and the World Bank.
To mark the start of the PSSNYE Project implementation, the World Bank Support Mission has been in Sierra Leone since November 7, 2022 for a two–week mission to meet with Heads of MDAs and to work with NaCSA and other implementing partners to review various implementation documents.
Part of the World Bank Support Mission was to also work with Government to officially launch the PSSNYE Project.
The project implementation task will be led by NaCSA in partnership with ACC, the National Youth Commission (NaYCOM), the Ministry of Youth Affairs (MoYA), Freetown City Council (FCC), and Statistics Sierra Leone (Stats. SL).
As in the current SSN Project, the ACC will continue to lead the Grievance Redress Mechanism (GRM) component. The ACC GRM will be responsible for engaging project beneficiaries and stakeholders on the project deliverables and in popularizing GRM in collaboration with the other implementing partners, receive grievances/complaints/dissatisfactions from project beneficiaries, stakeholders and other community members, and help to resolve those grievances with feedback provided to complainants. All administrative complaints that will be registered by beneficiaries, stakeholders and community members during the course of implementation will be referred to the appropriate partners (NaCSA, NaYCOM, MoYA, FCC, Stats. SL etc.) and, all corruption related complaints will be handled by the ACC using the normal corruption handling procedures.
GRM is one of the platforms used by the ACC in its effort to preventing corruption in Government and other donor funded projects.
(C) Public Relations Unit, ACC
