29th March, 2023
The Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), Southern and Eastern Regional offices staff have benefited from a capacity building training on corruption safeguards and integrity values on Tuesday 28th March, 2023 at the ACC’s Bo Office, Bo City, Bo District. The training was conducted for free, by Transformation Sierra Leone and Commissioning lifestyle of Integrity, Canadian based organizations.
In his statement, ACC’s Director of Public Education and External Outreach Department, Patrick Sandi expressed gratitude on behalf of the Commission to the Trainers from Canada, Bruce Mann of Transformation Sierra Leone and Bill Pipke, of Commissioning a lifestyle of Integrity for the initiative to capacitate some staff of the ACC with the skills and knowledge required to build integrity systems in public sector institutions.
Mr. Sandi acknowledged that the training will certainly add value to the work of the Commission especially to Prevention and Public Education and External Outreach Departments. He recognized that capacity building exercise of any sort which focuses on integrity is crucial to the Commission because its work squarely underpinned with integrity. Director Sandi emphasized the usefulness of the training to staff as it provided them with basic integrity guides on how to interact with public sector workers. Mr. Sandi appealed to the trainers on behalf of the ACC to also extend this enhancement to other staff of the Commission. The Director called on ACC staff of Bo and Kenema to make good use of the knowledge gained and ensured it is transferred to other colleagues.
Delivering his lecture through PowerPoint presentation, Transformation Sierra Leone, representative, Mr. Bruce Mann said they decided to share their expertise with staff of ACC because both institutions share common values. He shed light on cultural architect, four laws of building culture, formal and informal culture, emotional pay-cheque, building a life-giving culture and how to build a life-giving culture from the perspective of building integrity in public life. Mr. Mann described building cultural integrity as the process of determining the gap between the formal and the informal cultures. He furthered that the degree of cultural integrity narrow the gap between what we do and what we say. “When hearts and minds are changed, it changes the individuals and community” he asserted.
Bill Pipke of Commissioning lifestyle of Integrity started his PowerPoint presentation with a question “Three brothers were given two apples, the eldest among them decided the one apple between him and the first brother and did the same thing with the other brother. What kind of brother is he? Mr. Pipke described integrity as doing what you ought to do, even if it costs you. He asserted that an individual can decide to live a life of integrity by staying out of trouble, be selective, ensures integrity is sustained. Mr. Pipke pointed out that influence, trust, dignity, honour, truth and authenticity are the pillars that form the integrity foundation.
The training was climaxed with questions and answers session.
