Dear Editor,
In 2010 the G20 countries committed to put in place measures intended to protect whistleblowers. In 2014 a study was done to examine measures that had been taken by each member country in pursuance of this noble intent, and to suggest what can be done to improve each country’s effort.
In the Executive summary of the report we read this – “lacking strong legal protection government and corporate employee who report wrongdoing to their managers or to regulators can face dismissal, harassment and other forms of retribution. With employees deterred from coming forward, government and corporate misconduct can be perpetuated.” Further, the writers made this bold statement “Whistleblowing is now considered to be among the most effective, if not the most effective means to expose and remedy corruption, fraud and other types of wrong doing in the public and private sectors.” Indeed, over the years we have seen examples of how vital whistleblowers were for exposing and bringing corrupt politicians and business men, to justice. President Nixon was brought down and forced to leave office by the revelations of a whistleblower known as “Deep Throat.” Donald Trump’s businesses have been attracting the attention of the law in New York for over 15 years. In recent times, New York has been able to get its hands on documents revealing suspicious transactions by Trump’s business. However, New York struggled to make sense of many of these documents, and in other cases unable to determine ‘intent,’ until NY obtained assistance from Michael Cohen
Mr. Cohen was Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer for over ten years and admits to having been involved in many of Trump’s corrupt dealings and helped New York make sense of many of the documents they held. Now, Trump is likely to face the court on various corruption charges. This came about because Cohen turned whistleblower, and cooperated with the office of NY’s Attorney General. It is also worth noting how much the NY Attorney General’s office is trying to get Trump’s Chief Financial Officer, Allen Weisselberg, to cooperate since it is believed he knows more than anyone else about Trump’s alleged corrupt business practices. Weisselberg’s assistance is also needed since Cohen is a convicted criminal and the defense is likely at trial, to label him an unreliable witness. Being a whistleblower can be a dangerous thing. Not only could such persons lose their jobs, opportunity for promotion, refused employment in areas that the person/s they tell on have influence, but in numerous instances, some have lost their lives. Any belief that same can’t happen in Guyana is naïve. In fact, we might have already witnesses such killings.
In Guyana, in 1964, a fire bomb was thrown into the home of the Abraham family, killing eight members. This followed on the heels of a family member, who worked at a city bank, disclosing that the PPP party was financed by the Soviet Union. In more recent times, George Bacchus was killed soon after accusing then Minister of Home Affairs, Ronald Gajraj, of being in charge of a group of which he (George Bacchus) claimed to have been a member, and which came to be known as the “death squad.” Mr. Gajraj claimed to hardly knowing Mr. Bacchus, but Bacchus went on to, in some detail, describe the interior of Gajraj’s home. Could be that these murders had nothing to do with silencing whistleblowers. Could be there are other explanations for these deaths coinciding with disclosure that would embarrass and or point to criminal activities. But, then again, it could be that these deaths occurred so as to silence the voices of whistleblowers. So, in order for us to encourage citizens (in a position to know) to turn whistleblowers, we must make them feel safe taking the risk that comes with telling all they know of corrupt dealings.
Recently, the Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister- Keith Rowley piloted the Whistleblower Bill in Trinidad’s House of Representative. While doing so he said this, “We have seen situations where a government is in office. They come in poor like a church rat. Some of them don’t want to come out of office, but when they do, they want to go out as multi-billionaire because they believe that they are entitled to public monies and to the good life.” A while ago the Guyanese Minister with responsibility for Finance (Ashni Singh) addressed the United Nations and outlined a number of initiatives the present government intends to take in its efforts to stamp out corruption in both low and high places here in Guyana. The Chronicle of 4th June 2021 noted the key aspects of the initiative as articulated by Dr. Singh. These are (1) Establishing parliamentary oversight bodies, (2) Establish new constitutional and legal frameworks that will give rise to greater integrity in public office etc. One will note, that unlike Trinidad, the Guyanese model does not mention, does not isolate and deal independently with proposals to encourage and protect whistleblowers. The Whistleblower Bill presented to T&T’s House of Representative by that country’s Prime Minister covers most of the areas that I would like to see in such a bill. I, however, want to make one suggest for consideration. A suggestion that, hopefully the Guyanese Government would see fit adding to any approach intended to protect whistleblowers that it might be contemplating.
Guyana must push for a CARICOM approach to encouraging and protecting whistleblowers. Whistleblowers cannot be protected by any individual state of CARICOM having in isolation, its own whistleblower protection program. Small states as those making-up CARICOM cannot by themselves offer adequate protection to whistleblowers. Caribbean people are largely extroverts. There is no community in a single member state to which we can relocate a whistleblower that would not soon be general knowledge. Our experiences in Guyana with ‘safe houses’ for abused women should inform us of how difficult keeping such houses secret can be. On too many occasions, on leaving these shelters to go about their business, these women are confronted and abused by husbands/ex-husbands/lovers. Whistleblower protection can only stand a chance of succeeding if the whistleblower can be transplanted to any of the 15 member states and 5 Associate States of CARICOM, while assuming a new identity.
Sincerely,
Claudius Prince
