The Spacia platform is the latest solution found by the Ivorian government to fight corruption in the public administration. It was officially launched a week ago and stands for System for Monitoring, Prevention and Detection of Corruption and Related Offences.
The state is not giving itself any rest at all to eradicate all forms of corruption within the public administration. The Executive has a new tool to crack down on corruption. This is the Spacia platform (System for monitoring, preventing and detecting corruption and related offences). Thanks to this tool, Ivorian citizens can denounce an act of corruption in the public administration online by calling the toll-free number 1345. The other option is to send a letter to a complaints office. The alert is then analysed and validated or not by a committee of lawyers.
Once the complaint is approved, the competent authority will take it up and impose sanctions on the offending official. The process can take several weeks depending on the nature of the complaint. The Spacia platform is in fact set up by the Ivorian Ministry of Good Governance and the Fight against Corruption created in 2021. According to the authorities, this is a sign of the state’s determination to crack down on corruption rigorously and without tolerance. This fight is one of the priorities of President Alassane Ouattara’s third term.
Civil society demands more from the government.
The president of the Governance Commission within the Convention of Ivorian Civil Society focused more on the modalities of the process. On this issue, Yoro Bi Ta Raymond remains dissatisfied and deplores the lack of involvement of civil society organisations. He also wished that there were more safeguards within the platform. “We think that the different barriers that the appeal will cross do not go all the way, and that is what makes us uncomfortable. We think that the ministry should still involve civil society organisations, because they are the ones who denounce. It expects a lot from this ministry, but to sideline it is not good, I am not satisfied.
Corruption, the bone in the throat of Côte d’Ivoire.
In 2021, the latest reports by Transparency International and the World Bank ranked Côte d’Ivoire 105th out of 180 countries. According to Epiphane Zoro, the Minister of Good Governance, Ivory Coast loses 1,300 billion CFA francs a year to corruption. The sectors most exposed to corruption would be health, justice, construction and customs.
