Whistleblower Policy a major success of Buhari administration - Minister
Kemi Adeosun, Minister of Finance, said the whistleblower policy of the federal government is one of the success stories of the Buhari administration.
She said this at a seminar organised by the Bureau of Public Service Reforms (BPSR) on “The Whistleblower Policy and its Implication for Public Servants’’ in Abuja on Tuesday.
The Whistleblower Policy was introduced in December 2016 by the federal government as part of the initiatives to wage war against corruption.
According to Adeosun, as at July, over 5,000 reports have been made through various reporting channels, 365 actionable tips are received out of the 5000 reports.
She said that over half of the reports came from public servants.
The Minister said the tips related to issues of contract inflation, ghost workers, illegal recruitment and misappropriation of funds.
Others according to her, include illegal sale of government assets, diversion of revenues and violation of Treasury Single Account (TSA) regulations.
She also said that the information received showed that certain types of tips were recurring.
“Thirty-nine per cent (144) of the actionable tips relate to misappropriation and diversion of funds/revenue, 16 per cent (60) relate to ghost workers, illegal recruitment and embezzlement of funds meant for personnel emolument.
“Fifteen per cent (56) relate to violation of TSA regulation, 13 per cent (49) relate to contract inflation/violation of the Procurement Act.
“Others include failure to carry out projects for which funds have been released and nine per cent (34) relate to non-remittance of pension and National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) deductions.’’
Others according to Adeosun, include concealed bail-out funds and embezzlement of funds from donor agencies.’’
She also said the whistleblower was entitled to between 2.5 per cent and five per cent of the amount recovered as an incentive.
This, she said, only applied to whistleblowers that provided information that were original and directly led to the recovery of stolen or concealed funds or assets.
Â
Comments
Be the first to comment on this post
Leave a Reply