English | 2022 | Original PDF | 4 MB | 427 Pages
Emmanuel Saffa Abdulai, 3030836606, 3030836576, 978-3030836603, 9783030836603, 978-3030836573, 9783030836573, B09JLJWQWW, 978-3-030-83657-3, 978-3-030-83658-0
This book argues that Sierra Leone’s
ten-year civil conflict demonstrates the criticality of freedom of
information (FOI) as a facet of good governance where corruption
thrives, spanning both public and private sectors, if Sierra Leone’s
continued security and stability are to be ensured. It argues that it
was the absence of an anti-corruption tool like FOI and its attendants,
transparency, and accountability, in governance generally, and in the
area of the extractive industry in particular, that lead to other social
phenomena which directly sparked the war. It proffers that for the
continued consolidation of peace, security, stability and development in
Sierra Leone, transparency and accountability must be ensured by
protecting and implementing the demand driven anti-graft FOI.
Straddling
the disciplines of law, political science, public policy, and history,
the book’s major premise is that it was the absence of FOI in the area
of governance and the extractive industry, which enabled politicians,
civil servants and the politically connected to ransom and exploit
Sierra Leone’s mineral resources for their own profit with impunity, a
state of affairs which led to underdevelopment, state collapse and an
embittered civil populace especially the youth. The book postulates that
as such any attempt to ensure long-term peace in Sierra Leone, should
seek to avoid replicating the conditions that gave rise to that gruesome
conflict- elites expropriation of national resources through endemic
graft. The book proposes the comprehensive and effective implementation
of the Right to Information Act 2013.
