WHISTLEBLOWERS KEY IN GRAFT FIGHT – UPND

UNITED Party for National Development (UPND) Chairperson for Religious Affairs William Njombo says corruption whistleblowers must be given maximum protection because the scourge involves very powerful people.

And Dr. Njombo has said incentives in the form of money must not be introduced in whistleblowing because people may be fabricating stories and reporting corruption where there is nothing.

Speaking in an interview with The Scoop, Dr. Njombo said whistleblowers were very important in the fight against graft hence, must be protected at all cost.

He said if there was any support that must be given to whistleblowers, it must not be withheld and that these must be protected from harassment and victimisation.

He added that whistleblowers must not suffer litigations, saying their identity where necessary and possible, must be kept anonymous so that they were protected from people whom they are reporting who are usually very powerful.

“Whistleblowers are very important people to any society and any economy because you need citizens that are patriotic and courageous enough to be able to report suspected corruption,” he said.

He added: “Those who engage in corruption are very powerful people. So we need to ensure that whistleblowers’ identity is kept anonymous and that they are protected from victimisation, even prosecution in case they missed something at the time they were reporting a corruption case.”

However, Dr Njombo said whistleblowers must report corruption cases devoid of incentives in form of money allocated to them.

“On whether they should be given incentives in form of money, I may not be for the idea because when you are motivated by something other than patriotism and the desire to protect your country’s resources, it may happen that many people can come up with fabricated stories and report corruption where there is nothing just for them to get an incentive.

“We may actually jeopardize the whole idea of whistleblowing. People may begin to whistle blow for the purpose of cashing in. Therefore, I think we must leave it as it is but we must tighten the law and ensure that we protect whistleblowers from harassment and where need be, possible prosecution,” he said.