By Usman Kamara
Introduction
The issue of corruption in the Sierra Leone Police (SLP) has always been the reason for truncating its authority over the years and establishment of separate entities to discharge those functions. Ironically public outcry against the succeeding ones remains unabated. Public indignation and resentment against the police for its remnant functions whenever perception surveys are conducted is also said to be relentless.
The institutions, particularly the ACC, which conducts the surveys seemingly narrowly, focus on the SLP which it often presumes to be responsible for the loss of billions of leones in revenue through bribes motorists pay to police officers on traffic duty. There is however always a deafening silence on the leakages at other MDAs that are very massive in real terms than the presumed one in the traffic sector and whose impact are in fact more insidious and obstructive to the nation’s socio-economic advancement. These aspects will be dissected further as the analysis proceeds.
The trigger of this article is the Traffic Rules which are purportedly designed to decongest the courts in the prosecution of traffic matters and curb corruption among traffic personnel, which are quite laudable objectives worth pursuing.
Though I might sound pessimistic, the joy of motorists over the newly introduced Traffic Rules, who will take it as an unbridled right to violate traffic rules with impunity under the mistaken belief that they will only be warned for the offences, will be but a short- lived affair like the preceding efforts. The rules succinctly requires a police officer on traffic duty to warn a motorist for minor offences and may grant an offender a grace period of twenty-four (24) hours to produce his driving licence.
There is in fact nothing new about the rules as the Road Traffic Regulation of 1960 has similar provisions except that it was deemed impracticable over the years due to the dynamics in the road traffic sector such as the low level of compliance rate by drivers, difficulty in tracing offenders, volume of traffic. etc.
Clarity on Operational Procedures
It is hoped that the proposed rules will take cognizance of the loopholes if the desired result is to be achieved. Whilst the details of the rules are yet scanty, it is expected that they will take into account factors that rendered them ineffective in the past.
The rules should not only be specified but availed to motorists through their unions. Other aspects for clarity should include the number of warnings to be given a motorist for an offence or cumulative offences, ultimate action against a frequent offender, mode of warning - verbal or written, documentation of warnings which may include the use of Police Note Book, inside of which cover pages the minor offences should be specified for ease of reference and attention of inquiring motorists, and logging of details in the MTR Log Book and setting up of a computerised database.
Unruly Motorists
Most motorists who ply the highway invariably with little legal restraint might view them as blanket cover to operate unrestrained and to be warned by a police officer for any offence to the extent that even if he commits an arrestable offence he should only be warned which will eventually induce them to adopt a lawless slogan “Nar for warn me.”
The rate of traffic violations will rise steeply as already the urban centres especially Freetown is infested with hordes of unruly and aggressive bike riders whose uncivil conduct on the highway has resulted into escalating rates of deaths, injury and maiming of the hapless passengers.
Inconsistency in Rules Enforcement
Traffic Wardens have the authority under the Road Traffic Act of 2001 to issue tickets to violators of minor traffic offences whilst police officers are supposed to warn for similar offences. The SLP and SLRSA should harmonize their enforcement procedures in this regard.
Traffic Wardens were robust at the inception of their operations in the issuance of tickets. But this lost vigour over time and they resorted to arresting for the offences as the number of offenders as well as unpaid fines grew astronomically. The level of motorists’ compliance with the ticketing has been quite dismal. Statistics show that some vehicles involved in multiple offences accrue four (4) or more unpaid fines that are only paid as a precondition for subsequent licensing at SLRSA.
Flood Gate of Traffic Offenders
In the late 1990s the Traffic Warden Unit was established at the former SLRTA principally to divest the SLP of some of its authority in the management of road traffic for an efficient and less corrupt service. The operation of the Wardens is yet below the mark as they got entangled in the vicious circle of corruption in the country that eventually debilitated their efforts.
If Traffic Wardens with the authority to ticket violators of minor offences have been rendered impotent it remains to be seen if there will be any remarkable success by the SLP who will only be warning in its enforcement of the Traffic Rules.
Negative Domestic Perception of the SLP
The role of the SLP entails the manning of entry points: airports, sea ports, border posts in addition to its traditional role of enforcing the law, regulations, prevention and detection of crime and prosecution of offenders. These roles relate to diverse aspects of public activity and always bring them in direct contact with the public.
Police indulgence in corruption is therefore not only visible but covers a wider range of the public spectrum hence when public perception surveys are conducted, as random as they might be, will certainly cover respondents who may have interacted with the police.
Corruption in other sectors is invisible and usually involves personal contact between people who may not be interviewed in a given survey. This largely explains the poor ratings of the SLP in perception surveys and the trend is likely to continue in the foreseeable future for the cited reasons and the manner in which surveys are usually conduced.
The SLP’s upgraded recruitment scheme initiated under the aegis of Mr. Keith Biddle, former IGP, was plagued by anomalies over the years and eventually suffered a deleterious blow in the prelude to the 2012 elections when hundreds of social miscreants crept into the Force through a patronage system in which merit was downgraded in favour of political favourites. Some of these and other nonconformists serving members continue to taint the SLP’s image.
The police is often vilified and bashed for high-handedness and disproportionate use of force in dealing with public order matters such as protests, unlawful assembly, unauthorised rallies and enforcement of obsolete laws such as the Public Order Act of 1965 as well as pursuing lines of inquiry especially that which involve the elites who usually perceive the police as bias and allege compliance with “orders from above.”
Sections 155 and 17 (1a-j) of 1991 Constitution defines Police powers in safeguarding public order and safety and morality so as to preserve the collective interest of the country. The crux of the matter has always been police ability to enforce the law fairly without bias, prejudice and with good conscience.
Evidence abound that police independence in the enforcement of law and order falls within the range of democratic and authoritarian regimes and it declines the closer the society is to the extreme end. The operations of police institutions globally fall in this spectrum with the SLP being no exception.
High External Rating of the SLP
It is an uncontested fact that the SLP is rated highly particularly on Peace keeping operations in complete contrast to what obtains domestically. Besides the fact that the nation hosted the world’s largest peace keeping mission in the past decade which served as a learning curve for other Sierra Leoneans engaged in such operations, the SLP is highly reputed for its overseas operations.
One should not be baffled by this as with all social settings the environment has considerable impact on an individual. This therefore underscores the fact that because of endemic corruption in the country it will be miraculous for the SLP to operate differently in spite of its determination to do so.
The SLP’s Disciplinary Control Mechanism
It is acknowledged and widely acclaimed that of all MDAs in the country the SLP has the most effective internal control mechanism to ensure that its personnel perform their duties in an ethical and professional manner.
Since the promulgation of the SLP Discipline in 2001 it has meted out stringent disciplinary actions against its personnel ranging from hundreds of yearly dismissals, demotions, suspensions and corrective training. The recent establishment of the Independent Police Complaint Board (IPCB) further manifests how accountable it is expected to operate in a democratic setting to meet public expectation.
The Ratings of SLP Successor Departments
Since in the 90s successive governments have heeded public outcry against the SLP for corrupt practices and set up separate departments and units - Licence, Immigration and Traffic Wardens - to discharge functions which were police domain. The public who are recipients of such services can better judge today whether the ultimate objective of making those institutions less corrupt and more efficient have been achieved. If the goal still remains farfetched in spite of the huge funding gap between the operations of those departments in the past and now it is only but morally just to assess the police objectively and accept the undeniable fact that the fault lies not in them but the society.
Corruption in the Public Service
The police by virtue of its immense power for safeguarding the public is expected to exhibit high ethical standards in the performance of its duties. It is however equally true that those other public servants whose roles revolve around life-threatening situations also be highly ethical in their service delivery.
The painful cries of patients left unattended to at health centres because they can’t afford the medical bills, incessant demand by teachers for a myriad of payments, operations of countless lessons to the detriment of effective class work as well as the sale of pamphlets and lesson notes which is more often the rule than the exception at secondary school and tertiary levels, which are all depressing for relatives, parents and guardians, immoral and debasing conduct of some teachers in relating with female students are all commonplace at the various service delivery points. The Education Sector which should be the bedrock of national development, is steeped in corruption.
A cursory glance at other MDAs is equally startling. It is not uncommon for public servants to demand for bribe in discharging their functions but remain unseen as they operate behind closed doors and panelled offices. It is through MDAs that colossal sums of foreign aids are channelled in the furtherance of national development efforts. However, it is public knowledge that there are a lot of leakages in the system which robs the nation of such scarce resources.
Some actors in the private sector also indulge in and spur corrupt practices. The motorists who charge passengers multiple fares for short distances, perpetual extortion of huge sums of so-called union dues from motorists by unaccountable union operatives, betrayal of public trust by self-serving civil society activists, retailing of goods and wares at exorbitant prices, escalating prices that far outstrip incomes are all immoral practices.
Unlike the SLP, which has CDIID and IPCB as monitors of its ethical and professional conduct, there is no viable control mechanism at other MDAs for holding staff who indulge in corrupt or other unethical practices accountable for their misdeeds save for the occasional paltry prosecution of a handful of senior civil servants by the ACC.
To catalogue the litany of corruption in the country is beyond the scope of this article. What however remains indisputable is that corruption is prevalent in all layers of the society. They all amount to unethical and unprofessional conduct regardless of how they are termed. Policy decisions that hurt the populace and cause deprivation, tax evasion and unauthorized waivers, lack of due diligence in the granting of bank loans that often results into huge financial losses, procurement and contract leakages, bureaucratic red tape, misuse of public assets, etc.
Conclusion
It is my humble estimation that none of the other MDAs is immune to corruption and will not cast the first Biblical stone on the adulterous woman and a lot of fair-minded people of moral rectitude share similar view. The various institutions engaged in perception surveys especially the ACC with its highest locally remunerated staff should widen its focus on the broader spectrum of civil servants so as to elicit the required information for a truer reflection of public perception on corruption.
This article is not to mitigate public aversion and revulsion against corruption in the SLP but rather an exhortation for even-handedness in conducting fairer and just perception surveys that will identify all forms of corrupt practices in the society, apportion blame equitably, prosecute offenders and pursue effective strategies that will considerably minimize corruption in the society as it is an undisputed fact indeed it is a social menace that requires the collective efforts of everybody if meaningful progress is to be made in the protracted struggle against this global phenomenon.
The author, Usman Kamara, is an ex-Superintendent of Police.
(C) Politico 19/04/16
