(Seychelles News Agency) - Transparency Initiative Seychelles has launched a survey on Facebook to collect data on corruption-related issues.

The survey -- People’s Perception of Corruption in Seychelles -- has nine questions and is part of the European Union project ‘Towards Improving Good Governance, Transparency, and Accountability in Seychelles."

According to the project coordinator of the Transparency Initiative Seychelles, Marie-France Watson, “The survey gives the chance to gather information in a short period of time. And for us, this is essential as our capacity is very small.”  

Watson told SNA on Friday that “corruption is a subject that everybody talks about. But the question that begs is what we really understand by that.  When we are working on our plan, we want to identify our target and for us to identify our target we need to understand what our audience understand by corruption and how it affects their life.”

She added that the survey is for different age groups as it will be good to know what different people of different ages think about corruption.

Since the survey started on Tuesday around 130 people have filled it out. The data collected will help Transparency Initiative Seychelles to produce advocacy materials which reflect what the country needs to improve transparency and accountability.

The Transparency Initiative Seychelles is a non-governmental organisation launched in April 2017 to help fight against corruption and bribery. It is part of the global entity Transparency International.

This year, Seychelles improved eight places on the global Corruption Perceptions Index for 2018, ranking 28^th out of 180 countries -- the best performance for the island nation since the index started in 1995.

The chairperson of Transparency Initiative Seychelles, Chrystold Chetty, had attributed the ranking to the progress made by Seychelles, an archipelago in the western Indian Ocean.

“For example, the government has put in place different mechanism such as the Access to Information Act, the Anti-Corruption Act that has permitted a lot of work to be done, although little result has been produced,” Chetty had told SNA.

He added that the National Assembly of Seychelles is also playing its role to sensitise the people on corruption.

To date, the Anti-Corruption Commission Seychelles, which take up cases of corruption has recorded 117 cases of corruption, out of which four cases have been withdrawn before the Attorney-General office to be re-examined.

Early this year, the Seychelles’ Supreme Court sentenced the former Complaints and Communications Manager of the Anti-Corruption Commission, Abison De Giorgio, to eight years imprisonment and a fine of $5,000 (SCR75, 000).