An appeal has been made to Bauchi State government to as a matter of necessity do everything administratively possible to ensure the domestication of the whistleblower policy in order to check the spate of corruption in governance.
The appeal which is believed to be in line with the Federal Government’s policy on measures to fight corruption was jointly made by two NGOs, ‘Cleen Foundation’ in Conjunction with Prison Inmate Development Initiative (PIDI) in a press statement jointly issued on Sunday.
Executive Director of Prison Inmate Development Initiative (PIDI), Mr Mbami Iliya Sabka, who signed the statement stated that by so doing, the policy will be strengthened as a milestone to become operational in the state.
The statement made available to Journalists contained that, “Although the Policy has not become a Law as it is still pending at the National Assembly, there was the need for the Bauchi State government through the State House of Assembly create and pass into law, the whistleblower policy to guarantee probity, transparency and accountability amongst public servants.”
According to the groups in the statement, “the whistleblower policy which was created by the federal ministry of finance scaled through the second reading in October 2016 at the National Assembly and was approved by the Federal Executive Council (FEC) in December same year.”
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The statement further contained that the policy provided that if the government is able to recover stolen or concealed assets through information given by a whistle-blower, then he/she may be entitled to between 2.5%-5.0% of the recovered amount.
“To qualify for the reward, the policy indicated that the whistle-blower must provide the government with information it does not already have and could not otherwise obtain from any other publicly available source to the government,” the statement added.
It added that the actual recovery must also be because of the information provided by the whistle-blower while the policy defines a ‘whistleblower’ as a person who voluntarily discloses to the Federal Government of Nigeria, through the Federal Ministry of Finance, possible misconduct or violation that has occurred, is ongoing or is about to occur with specific concerns which are in the public interest.
The policy is really for informants, people who are aware of the crime, therefore a conspirator or accomplice will technically not be classed as a whistle-blower and might be unable to take the benefit of the policy, it explained.
However, it does not provide any immunity from civil or criminal prosecution. What this means is that if during the investigation some of the evidence links a whistleblower to partaking in the act of corruption or a related incident, the whistleblower would not be immune from criminal prosecution, he/she could technically be charged for a crime that he or she helped blow the whistle on.
Whistleblowing policy in Nigeria is an anti-corruption programme that encourages people to voluntarily disclose information about fraud, bribery, looted government funds, financial misconduct, government assets and any other form of corruption or theft to Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Finance.
It was reported that within the first two months of the whistleblowing policy in Nigeria, the Federal Government of Nigeria recovered over $178 million that were stolen from the government.
By June 5, 2017, Federal Ministry of Finance received a total of 2,150 tips from the public, 128 tips came through the website of the ministry, 1,192 was through phone calls, 540 through SMS and 290 through email to the ministry.
The groups then expressed delight that the Speaker of the Bauchi State House of Assembly, Abubakar Suleiman had recently described a call by the group on the state assembly to enact a law in support of whistleblower policy as a welcome development.
The statement contained that the Speaker had also urged PIDI Nigeria and Cleen Foundation to prepare a motion in that regard and submit to the assembly so that it could deliberate on it.