By: Sylvanus Blake, Public Relations Officer, ACC.

The Deputy Commissioner of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC), Augustine Foday Ngobie, has on Thursday, 4th July, 2024, commenced a string of on-the-spot monitoring of the training and deployment of field staff, who will be enrolling beneficiaries of the First Phase of the Economic Inclusion Component of the Productive Social Safety Net and Youth Employment (PSSNYE) project.

Mr. Ngobie, who has been providing strategic leadership for GRM/SSN-related programs, paid unannounced visits to the training venues in Freetown, where participants from the five piloted districts were being trained. While addressing trainees and trainers, he stated that every component of the PSSNYE project was cardinal to the socio-economic emancipation of extremely poor vulnerable households in Sierra Leone. He said that the ACC will continue to be vigilant and scrupulous in ensuring integrity and transparency in the rollout of the project.

Mr. Ngobie encouraged field staff to stick to the project plans, avoid activities that will undermine the project’s credibility and survival, and call on them to particularly avoid corruption and be patriotic and professional at all times. *“You are going out there not only to represent the project stakeholders who have hired you, but your very selves, and to attend to the needs of vulnerable and very poor Sierra Leoneans. Your work should at all times reflect the ACC’s core values of integrity, impartiality, and honesty. We will not hesitate to take appropriate actions against anyone who is involved in activities that will undermine the overall objective of this project,”* the ACC Deputy Commissioner stated.

Mr. Ngobie furthered that, with support from the Government of Sierra Leone, the World Bank, and UNICEF, the required resources for the successful enrolment of the targeted beneficiaries in the five districts have been committed, to ensure speed, accuracy, thoroughness, and accomplishment of the stated objectives. He encouraged all field staff to feel comfortable reaching out to the ACC and other stakeholders in the PSSNYE with any concerns and challenges they might encounter.

It could be recalled that upon the successful rollout of the Social Safety Net project across Sierra Leone, the World Bank, UNICEF, and the Government of Sierra Leone in 2023 committed another 42 million Dollars for the implementation of a multi-faceted PSSNYE. As part of the project, a *sub-component under component One; SSN Cash Transfers and Provision of Economic Inclusion Support, will pilot a program of activities consisting of an integrated livelihood package for extremely poor households. The program will enable *these households to diversify their income-generating activities, including; a start-up capital grant, training and mentoring; support for behaviour change; links to existing government and non-government program in agriculture; and links to markets, aimed at lifting them out of poverty.

For a household to be eligible for selection, it must participate in the community targeting and pass the Proxy Means Test (PMT) assessment that will be carried out after the pre-listing exercise.   Such households must be freshly targeted and enrolled and should not have benefited from the previous Social Safety Net programs that spanned 2014-2022. A total of 4,000 households will benefit from the first phase of the Economic Inclusion interventions, with an additional 2,000 households benefitting in the second phase.  This phase of the project will be implemented in Falaba, Pujehun, Kenema, Karene, and Western Area Rural Districts.

It should be noted that the enrolment process has now commenced simultaneously across the five districts, with teams from the National Commission for Social Action (NaCSA), ACC, Statistics Sierra Leone, and Orange Mobile Company fully deployed. Members of the public are encouraged to refer all grievances emanating from the rollout of the PSSNYE to the ACC through the toll-free lines of 8515, 077985985, or 077986986.

Credit – Public Relations Unit, ACC.

Copyright –Published in print in Expo Times Newspaper on Friday, July 12th, 2024 (ExpoTimes News – Expo Media Group (expomediasl.com)