Breaking Down the Proposed Whistleblower Act

Darrell Bradley

In its move to end corruption, the Joint Unions Negotiating Team is calling for the installation of the whistleblower’s act, a piece of legislation that will allow for persons to come forward with information and proof of misappropriation of public funds or corruption by public officials. News Five spoke with attorney-at-law Darrell Bradley who broke down the intention of the draft legislation.

Darrell Bradley, Attorney-at-law

“This is legislation that is very common in the region. The United States has very extensive whistleblower legislation which is very different from our draft legislation because they incentivise it, meaning that there is an economic incentive for an individual whistleblower to come forward. You get a percentage of any monies that are recovered as a result of your reporting of misappropriation or untoward governmental action. So the purpose of it is to protect or insulate persons who have information about governmental wrongdoing and you are trying to protect them from the actions they may take to expose that. So a whistleblower is an individual who would be somebody usually in a position that has information and knowledge and the draft legislation provides for a procedure for them to bring their information, even anonymously to the attention of investigation agencies, to the authorities, to the media so that it may become known. And what the legislation does is that it protects them from victimization or ill-treatment as a result of the fact that they become a whistleblower.”