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Thursday March 28, 2024

FBR to propose Whistleblower Protection Act

Move to get hold of tax evaders, black money

By our correspondents
May 02, 2015
ISLAMABAD: The Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) will propose the enactment of whistleblower protection law in the next year’s budget.
Chairman FBR Tariq Bajwa told The News here on Friday that the board would strongly recommend the whistleblower protection bill for enactment in the next budget to get hold of tax evaders and black economy.
Bajwa said that such a law is inevitable to recover the black money by not only protecting the identity of the person providing such information but also giving him a specified share of the non-taxed money recovered.
It is relevant to mention here that a consultant of the Transparency International Pakistan, who is associated with the Prime Minister’s Office, has also recently recommended the enactment of the whistleblower law as part of a detailed anti-corruption strategy which also seeks early enactment of two other laws — freedom of information act and right to public service act — to check the menace of corruption.
Once enforced. the whistleblower protection act, it is said, will help establish a mechanism to receive information relating to disclosure about the black money, untaxed wealth, money laundering, etc.
The act will also entertain complaints regarding corruption or willful misuse of power or willful misuse of discretion against any public servant and to inquire or cause an inquiry into such disclosures.
In the case of information shared about untaxed wealth, the person providing such information would be offered a specified share of the recovered money without revealing his or her identity to anyone. The proposed law will also provide adequate safeguards against victimisation of the person making such complaint and for matters connected.
The proposed law, as was suggested by the TIP, envisages that notwithstanding anything contained in the provisions of the Official Secrets Act, 1923, any public servant or any other person including any non-governmental organisation (NGO), may make a public interest disclosure before the competent authority.
Any disclosure made under the proposed act shall be treated as public interest disclosure for the purposes of this act and shall be made before the competent authority and the complaint making the disclosure shall, on behalf of the competent authority, be received by such authority as may be specified by regulations made by the competent authority.
The proposed law added that every disclosure shall be made in good faith and the person making disclosure shall make a personal declaration stating that he reasonably believes that the information disclosed by him and allegation contained therein are substantially true. Every disclosure shall be made in writing or by electronic mail or electronic mail message in accordance with the procedure as may be prescribed and contain full particulars and be accompanied by supporting documents, or other materials, if any.
The competent authority may, if it deems fit, call for further information or particulars from the person making the disclosure. However, no action shall be taken on public interest disclosure by the competent authority if the disclosure does not indicate the identity of the complainant or public servant making public interest disclosure or the identity of the complainant or public servant is found incorrect or false.
The competent authority shall, upon receipt of the complaint and concealing the identity of the complainant, or the public servant in the first instance, make discreet inquiry, in such manner and within such time as may be prescribed, to ascertain whether there is any basis for proceeding further to investigate the disclosure.