In line with the federal government’s policy on measures to fight corruption, “Cleen foundation in Conjunction with Prison Inmate Development Initiative (PIDI) have appealed to the Bauchi state government to domesticate the whistle blower policy.
The Executive Director of Prison Inmate Development Initiative (PIDI), Mr Mbami Iliya Sabka who made the appeal in a press release in Bauchi on Sunday said by so doing, the policy will be strengthened as a milestone to become operational in the state.
“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 assembly to create and pass into law, the whistle blower policy to guarantee probity, transparency and accountability amongst public servants”. The Director noted.
According to the groups, the Whistle blower 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 in December of the same year.
The group pointed out 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 group recalled.
The actual recovery must also be because of the information provided by the whistle-blower.
The Policy defines a ‘whistle blower’ as a person who voluntarily discloses to the Federal Government of Nigeria, through the Federal Ministry of Finance, a 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.
The policy 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 whistle-blower to partaking in the act of corruption or a related incident, the whistle-blower 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.
Whistle-blowing 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 the Nigeria’s Federal Ministry of Finance.
It was reported that within the first two months of the Whistle-blowing policy in Nigeria, 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.
Sabka expressed delight that the speaker of the Bauchi state assembly, Rt. Honourable Abubakar Suleiman had recently described a call by the group on the state assembly to enact a law in support of whistle blower policy as a welcome development.
He said 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.
