BY Aiah P. M. Sourie, Head of Outreach, ACC
The Commissioner of Sierra Leone’s Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), Francis Ben Kaifala Esq, has called for improved corruption measurement tool at the second Global Conference aimed at harnessing data to strengthen transparency, accountability, and strong policymaking robustly confront control corruption on a global scale.
The conference was held at the United Nations Headquarters, New York from 2 to 4 December 2025 to share experience and examine the possibilities of using reliable data for policymaking in the fight against corruption.
Commissioner Kaifala prefaced his speech with warm greetings from HE President Julius Maada Bio and the people of Sierra Leone who have shown readiness to support efforts to reshape actionable methods and tools to measure corruption.
He remarked that Transparency International (TI)’s annual Corruption Perception Index (CPI) has become a controversial issue especially in developing countries that often do poorly on the index. Citing instances, the Commissioner explained that when he served as Board Member of the African Union Advisory Board on Corruption (AUABC) and president of the Network of Anti-Corruption Institutions in West Africa (NACIWA), TI CPI would always stir opposing views on its legitimacy and authenticity.
“It seemed that very time the CPI came up in our meetings, the typical reaction ranged from disapproval to outrage… More broadly, many African government officials and some anti-corruption campaigners see the CPI as well as the TI’s accompanying commentaries as part of a purpose-driven smear campaign,” he said.
The ACC Chief argued that the basic sources in the index formula are not always transparent enough relative to the experts who do the scoring. He added that the CPI fails to cover some important areas such as ‘tax fraud, money laundry, illicit financial flows’ etc. which anti-graft campaigners concentrate on.
Mr Kaifala expressed concern that the CPI is sometimes used by TI and similar institutions to portray an “inaccurate and sometimes unfair picture of how well anti-corruption fighters are doing their job, particularly in Africa.”
This justifies the need for the conference, he stressed, as existing yardsticks to measure corruption have become disturbing for ACAs and governments. The Commissioner highlighted that data sourced from desk reviews and sometimes unknown experts for indexes like the CPI “give our countries low scores and discount the efforts we are putting into controlling corruption.”
He called for a better measurement tool that will support peer-reviewing, so that developing countries can learn from other countries that are faring well on the CPI. “We can review country-specific information and data in the yearly releases to identify areas of accountability and transparency that need improvement. And engage with integrity to ensure the measurements better match what is actually happening on the ground,” the Commissioner suggested.
The People’s Commissioner underscored the need for a new approach as existing corruption management tools are prone to errors or maybe bias, while not discounting the reality of corruption. He called for collective efforts to build an acceptable formula rooted in methodology that “captures prevalence levels and does not discount effort but strongly incorporate it.”
The Conference was co-convened by UNDP, the International Anti-Corruption Academy (IACA), the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the World Bank and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). It attracted policymakers, experts from governments, civil society, and international organisations.
