Guyana must now move to enact the whistle-blower legislation

Dear Editor,

It was recently reported by this newspaper that Guyana has approached the Organisation of American States (OAS) requesting technical support in the drafting of whistle-blower legislation for the country. This sort of legislation is necessary in order to ensure that both public and private entities adhere to the principles of governance as outlined in Guyana’s legislative framework, and shareholders’ rights are adequately protected.

Most of us here in Guyana would have heard of ‘whistle-blowing’ from the high-profile cases reported in the U. S. and UK media. Following the recent economic crisis, there have been numerous examples of whistle-blowing in the financial and banking sectors because those countries in particular had the relevant whistle-blowing legislation in place.

For the benefit of your readers, a whistle-blower is a person who tells the public or someone in authority about alleged dishonest or illegal activities (misconduct) occurring in a government department, a public or private organisation, or a company.

The alleged misconduct may be classified in many ways; for example, a violation of a law, rule, regulation and/ or a direct threat to public interest, such as fraud, health/ safety violations, and corruption.

One of the first laws that protected whistleblowers was the 1863 United States False Claims Act (revised in 1986), which tried to combat fraud by suppliers of the United States government during the Civil War. The act encouraged whistle-blowers by promising them a percentage of the money recovered or damages won by the government and protects them from wrongful dismissal.

In the UK, the key piece of whistle-blowing legislation is the Public Interest Disclosure Act 1998 (PIDA) which applies to almost all workers and employees who ordinarily work in Great Britain. The situations covered include criminal offences, risks to health and safety, failure to comply with a legal obligation, a miscarriage of justice and environmental damage.

In Guyana, the government has put in place a range of legislation to oversee the state sector and to create a positive framework as a model for developing nations, especially as it relates to the financial sector. For example, the Procurement Act is rare in comparison to other Caribbean countries which utilise a ministerial order for this purpose.

It should also be noted that Guyana is a signatory to the Inter-American Convention against Corruption, and reports twice yearly on issues of accountability, transparency, money laundering and corruption. The state has a huge responsibility in protecting shareholders, through legislative framework, to ensure that the decisions made by corporations are not detrimental to them.

Therefore, an increase in oversight by the state is also accompanied by increased oversight by non-state stakeholders as the country moves closer to developing the whistle-blower legislation.

Yours sincerely,

M Augustus