2009 Assessment

This peer-reviewed country report includes:

Integrity Indicators Scorecard: Scores, scoring criteria, commentary, references, and peer review perspectives for more than 300 Integrity Indicators.

Reporter's Notebook: An on-the-ground look at corruption and integrity from a leading local journalist.

Corruption Timeline: Ten years of political context to today's corruption and integrity issues.

Sierra Leone has demonstrated modest improvement in its overall governance and anti-corruption performance during the past year. Notably, strengthened whistle-blower protection laws now protect private sector employees from recrimination, and a recently established internal reporting mechanism for public sector corruption is now in place within the civil service. In addition, new legal measures have been implemented to protect the anti-corruption agency from political influence. These promising developments, however, are tempered by ongoing and deep-seated problems with accountability and transparency across all levels of government. Citizens continue to face difficulties accessing the asset disclosure records of executive and legislative officials (made more challenging by the absence of robust freedom of information laws), while regulations governing conflicts of interest in the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches remain weak.