Freedom of Information Law and Good Governance: The Curse of Corruption in Sierra Leone

ISBN-13: 9783030836603 / Angielski / Miękka / 2022

Emmanuel Saffa Abdulai

Opis

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.

Spis treści

Chapter One: Introduction: A Brief Global History of the Emergence, Evolution, Development and Proliferation of Freedom of Information: Principles Definitive of Scope and Substance

Chapter Two: Myths Surrounding Freedom of Information Laws 

Chapter Three: How FOI aids women’s Empowerment and redcues Gender and Sexual Based Violence 

                                                                                         

Chapter Four: Comparative Analysis of Freedom of Information Laws in Sierra Leone and Liberia

   

Chapter Five: Sierra Leone’s Resource Curse: How the Abuse of Diamonds, Politics and Power Collapsed a Nation 

Chapter Six: War, Business as Usual: The Global Scramble for Sierra Leone’s Natural Resources

Chapter Seven: Diamonds, War, Poverty and Underdevelopment: A Multidimensional Perspective on the Global Diamond Industry and its Need for Reform 

Chapter Eight: The Place of FOI in the Second Republic

Chapter Nine: Localising Transparency and Accountability: Access to Information and Citizen Engagement Under the Local Government Act 2004

Chapter Ten: The Effect of The EITI Process on Transparency and Accountability in Sierra Leone’s Extractive Industry

Chapter Eleven: Conclusion; Breaking Free of the Bog: The Need for a Novel Impetus in the Implementation of the RTAI Act 2013

O autorze

Emmanuel Saffa Abdulai is a barrister and solicitor of the High Courts of Sierra Leone, and Lecturer in the Department of Law, Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Sierra Leone. Over the last two decades, Abdulai has been a leading campaigner for the passing and implementation of freedom of information law in Sierra Leone and Africa as a civil society practitioner working for the Society for Democratic Initiatives, Sierra Leone. Abdulai chairs the Governing Council of the African Freedom of Information Council, and is also Chairperson of the Political Affairs Cluster of the African Union’s Economic Social and Cultural Council. He is a member of the Steering Committee of the EITI Multi-Stakeholders Working Group of Sierra Leone. He holds a Masters Degree in Anti-Corruption Studies from International Anti-Corruption Academy. He also has the following other qualifications: BA, LLB (FBC-SL), LLM (CEU) and PhD Candidate (University of London).