Samoan govt urged to develop whistleblower law
Samoa’s Public Service Commission has urged the Government to develop whistleblower legislation that was enacted in 2014.
The call was made in the last Annual Review for the Public Administration Sector Plan 2013-2014 to 2017-2018 which was published by the Public Service Commission.
According to the report, stakeholders were given the opportunity to suggest areas the next sector plan should focus on, and highlighted areas that they thought should be addressed in the development of the next Public Administration Sector Plan.
These include the development of whistleblower legislation, in line with establishment of an anticorruption body. Also included in the list was the implementation of One Public Sector-One vision for good governance - One Policy paper.
Knowledge based economy; Expansion of the Public Administration Sector coverage to include all SOEs (as most of initiatives developed by PSC affects the whole public sector); Review of working conditions and entitlements for general employees;
Human Resource priorities and its relationship to the work of MESC and SQA and Provision of information such as the kind of education and training needed to achieve Samoa’s development goals in the Strategy for the Development of Samoa.
In the meantime, the Audit Office has established a special audit unit within its office for whistleblowers in the public sector who want to report fraud and other irregularities.
The establishment of the unit comes on the back of laws enacted in 2014, which recommended that the Audit Office facilitate voluntary reporting of fraud and other irregularities, and ensure there is legal protection for whistleblowers.
The unit has been formed with newly qualified certified fraud examiners and will recruit legal and police expertise to cater for civil servants-turned-whistleblowers.