The Independent (Freetown)
27 March 2008
President Ernest Bai koroma's government has continued its much trumpeted crusade against corruption At the launching of the "Attitudinal Change" campaign at Miatta Conference Hallin Freetown on March 26, which is an accompanying weapon against corruption, the Vice president Sam Sumna said, "Attitude change" is a catalyst for development".
He pointed out that the Attitudinal Change campaign was not "a political program but a national program".
The Commissioner of the Anti Corruption Commission Abdul Tejan Cole said, "Sierra Leone had been experiencing a rapid erosion of moral and ethical values".
He added: "The few in society who stood up against these ills have often been treated as societal deviants and most times subjected to mockery and the few men of relative integrity in the country are often cried down".
The ACC has drafted a National Anti Corruption Strategy Plan part of which states, "There are hardly any morally sound examples in public life (in Sierra Leone) to emulate, especially for the present generation of young people. A Cross combination of these (negative) vices constitute a negative value system , which generates apathy and breeds corruption".
He pointed out that politicization of the public service and absence of the rule of law and the failure to reform the country's educational system also contributed to the creation of the corruption syndrome.
"The fight against corruption has to begin with us." He pointed out that changing attitude especially when people see it as a cultural norm becomes difficult when people nurture avaricious tendencies.
" This entrenched attitude can only be changed by the people", the ACC boss said He pointed out that change start from the family and then goes to the society at large.
The past government as voted out of power because of its inability to curb corruption.
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