Due to fear of safety, Nigeria’s whistleblower policy has lost momentum according to the federal executive council (FEC).
A draft bill to save the policy was introduced and approved by the council at the FEC meeting at the presidential villa, Abuja on Wednesday.
The policy which was initially launched in December 2016, encourages Nigerians to disclose information on fraud, bribery, looted government funds, financial misconduct, and any other form of corruption to the ministry of finance.
Speaking after the meeting, Zainab Ahmad, minister of finance, said a draft bill was introduced to save the policy.
“The ministry of finance, budget, and national planning presented a number of memos today. The first is the draft whistleblower bill for 2022. This memo has been reviewed by the council and approved with a provision to ensure alignment with the Evidence Act,” she said.
“The purpose of operationalizing and putting in place a whistleblower bill is to strengthen the fight against corruption and to also enable protection for whistleblowers that provide information for use by the government.
“As you know since 2016, the council had approved the setting up of the presidential initiative of continuous audit (PICA). PICA has been working in partnership with EFCC, ICPC, DSS, NFIU as well as the office of the attorney-general of the federation.
“We noticed that the whistleblower policy response has lost momentum. We embarked on engagements in the six geo-political zones and one of the main outcomes that we found is that people are concerned about their safety as a result of providing information. So this bill is critical to ensure the effectiveness of the retention of the whistle policy.”
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