The Freedom of Information and the Whistleblowers Act 2006

Compiled By Felix Dela Klutse

Business Editor of Daily Guide & Business Guide Newspaper

Introduction

Ghana has passed the long-awaited Freedom of Information and the Whistleblowers Act last year. Under the act, disclosures may be made regarding:

• breaches or likely breaches of the law;
• miscarriages of justice;
• environmental degradation;
• endangerment of individual and community health and safety; and
• Waste, appropriation or mismanagement of public resources.

Brief Background of the Act

The Freedom of Information and the Whistleblowers Act protects whistleblowers against victimization in any form including: dismissal, suspension, redundancy, denial of promotion, unfair transfer, harassment, intimidation, threats and discrimination.

The Act has made provision to reward whistleblowers whose disclosures would lead to the arrest and conviction of a person or the discovery of misappropriated money.

The Act forms part of the need to reduce corruption in order to achieve the necessary poverty reduction, meet the Millennium Development Goals and move Ghana into the middle income country.

The act is also enacted to provide for the manner in which individuals may in the public interest disclose information that relates to unlawful, corrupt or other illegal conduct or practices in the country.

It further ensured that persons who make the disclosures are not subjected to victimization, recognizes that corrupt and other illegal conduct in the organs of State, the private sector and other institutions in society undermines efficiency, accountability and transparency in governance and good corporate practice. The Whistleblower's bill was passed by Parliament and given assent on 20th October 2006.

The act is the culmination of stakeholder consultations and lobbying by civil society groups to enhance probity and accountability in the use of government resources. It outlines the instances and processes through which employees can disclose information on the illegal conduct or corrupt actions of their employers or fellow employees without fear of retribution.

The law allows the whistleblower to disclose the misuse of public funds to various groups. Consequently, the whistleblower is presented with several options on whom to disclose the information to. These include:

• the whistleblower’s employer;
• a police officer;
• the attorney general;
• the auditor general;
• a staff member of the intelligence agencies;
• a member of Parliament;
• the Serious Fraud Office;
• the Commission on Human Rights and Administrative Justice;
• the National Media Commission;
• the Narcotics Control Board;
• a traditional chief;
• a minister of state; or
• the Office of the President.

Where a disclosure is made to any of these persons or institutions, the recipient of the information must investigate the matter or refer it to the attorney general or other body as directed by the attorney general, who will initiate an investigation into the disclosure.

Protection and Immunity

A whistleblower is not liable to civil or criminal proceedings in respect of the disclosure unless it is proven that the whistleblower knew that the disclosure was false or that it was made with malicious intent. Additionally, a provision in an employment contract or other agreement between an employer and an employee is void if it seeks to preclude or discourage an employee from making a disclosure, instituting a court action or claiming a remedy for victimization.

Relevance to Corporate Governance

The whistleblower’s role in strengthening public sector corporate governance cannot be overemphasized. It provides a check on the actions of persons charged with the management of institutions that use public funds. Recent financial scandals - including the infamous Enron disaster - speak volumes about the importance of whistle blowing in ensuring accountability and good governance.

In Ghana, the review of the auditor general’s report on public institutions for the year ended December 2004/2005 by the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee established that billions of cedis in revenue losses were attributable to fraud.

Comment

The law makes significant inroads into corporate governance but in a culture where telling tales on others is highly frowned upon, the law can have its desired effect only if the public conscience is alerted to the need for vigilance and public sector accountability and, ultimately, if people are prepared to blow the whistle on wrongdoing.

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E-mail: felixklutse@yahoo.com

Sexual Harrassment Rocks Corporate Institutions

By Felix Dela Klutse

Sex seems to have eaten so much into the fabric of the Ghanaian society as sexual harassment in corporate institutions continue to remain high in the country with prospective female job applicants said to be the most affected.

A report from the Centre for Social Policy Studies, University of Ghana sometime back revealed that 74 percent of female employees and 42 percent of male employees in Ghana experienced sexual harassment in one way or the other within their working environment.

BUSINESS GUIDE’s recent survey in some corporate institutions also revealed that sexual pestering was still high in corporate Ghana as the problem appears to exist in large multinational, medium and small firms.

It cut across the banking, telecommunication, media and advertising and the aviation industry which tends to be very attractive and enticing to work.
In one of the ministries, the situation seems to be bad as a female young graduate expressed high concerns about the way senior officials pester young women for sex.

Victims of sexual harassment in separate interviews with BUSINESS GUIDE on condition of anonymity pointed out that it violates and impairs or nullifies their human rights and freedom.

"We try to avert the pressures but unfortunately we are not able to withstand it when it becomes so severe," a broadcast journalist with one of the leading radio stations in Accra told this paper."

I receive calls sometimes at midnight which I consider very strange, she asserted.
Another victim, who is presently out of job explained that she was forced to quit her front desk executive job because of persistent harassment by his overall boss.

According to the report, female employees between the ages of 21 and 25, were the group that largely experience sexual molesting in the workplace but it appears in recent times the ages of 25to 30 have not been left out. Over two-thirds of the perpetrators of the sexual harassment in the offices are males.

Though women generally are the frequent victims of sexual harassment in the workplace, the more frequent victims are specifically the single or unmarried women, the Centre for Social Policy Studies report added.

Young men are also said to receive sexual favours or molestation from their female superiors or bosses just to sleep with them. And these women, the paper’s sources say do not get much sexual satisfaction from their husbands.

Most at times, there are unwanted touching of intimate body parts, unwanted repeated proposals, unwanted sexual teasing and jokes, as well as questions or remarks about things related to sex.

This paper gathers that prospective female employees do everything possible to the extent of going to bed with their male superiors with the promise that they would be granted jobs after interview. Others who find themselves into the organization also play the sensual game to get favors leading to promotion. This result in excellent personnel being overlooked when they go for interview, a situation which could affect the productivity of the company.

Augustine Kobina Andoh, Senior Organizer for at the Centre for Social Policy Studies, University of Ghana, who led the research, explained that married male superiors/employers are the most frequent perpetrators of workplace sexual harassment. About 68 percent of the male perpetrators are married holding influential positions while the other group happens to be colleagues.

He emphasized: "Although sexual harassment is very prevalent in Ghana, a greater majority of the victims do not formally report their experiences to management or superiors for redress." About 95 percent of the cases go unreported, he added.

Currently, there is no national definition of sexual harassment though the Domestic Violence Act has a clause explaining the illegitimacy of it while the Ghana business code also frowns on it.

E-mail: felixklutse@yahoo.com

Overcoming Flight Phobia

By Felix Dela Klutse
Traveling is part of day to day human activities and the kind of business an individual does informs how often he travels either by air or other means of transportation.

Some people see traveling as adventure that should be carried out to widen their horizons, while others because of their business engagement and family visitation or vacation see traveling as unavoidable exercise.

However, it has been discovered that individual body system reacts to traveling in different ways which often leads to flying phobia. As people react to traveling on land which usually makes some travelers vomit on transit, air passengers also react to flying in various ways. The common syndrome of fear of flying is known as aviophobia.

Fear of flying according to experts is a different type of phobia or an indirect manifestation of one or more other phobias, such as claustrophobia (a fear of enclosed spaces) or acrophobia (a fear of heights). It is a symptom rather than a disease, and different causes may bring it about in different individuals.

This type of fear generates more interest as air travel is mostly unavoidable to people particularly business tycoons, leisure travelers and in professional contexts.
Investigation by BUSINESS GUIDE revealed that the fear is widespread, affecting a significant number of the Ghanaian population.

A fear of flying may stop somebody from going on vacations or visiting family and friends, and it can cripple the career of a business person by preventing him or her from traveling on work-related business.

Generally, some people systems react to flying which make them develop sudden display on board. These reactions include shivering, vomiting, ear blockage while symptoms of phobia on the other hands are breathlessness, excessive sweating, nausea, dry mouth, feeling sick, shaking, heart palpitations, inability to speak or think clearly, a fear of dying, becoming mad or losing control, a sensation of detachment from reality or a full blown anxiety attack, experts say.

Also, it has been found out that flights phobia can be in form of a simple fear for height, as the feeling of impracticality to personally pilot the aircraft, together with expectation of a bad.
According to specialists, flying phobia is more or less like a mental state, experienced by majority of the air passengers suffering from it. An alert produced by their mind that is directly associates with the word "plane" connects to a disaster or heartbreak.

In a state of panic, people becomes over-anxious and sensitive to any strange noises, feeling abnormal from their point of view, with fatal meaning, and suspiciously take whispering between the stewards and the plane engine sounds.

Recorded air crashes or lost of a fellow family members in past air mishap or even their personal involvement in some kind of accidents could sometimes informed the feeling in some individuals.
Osei Kweku, a student at the University of Ghana accused the media of being a major factor behind fear of flying, claiming that the media sensationalize airline crashes.

However, there is no basic medication against flights phobia, although taking some tranquilizers or drinking small dose of menthol flavored sweet can be an option - this may help to avoid the uncomfortable anxiety during a flight together with medical therapies that are known to treat hodophobia.

Some of the ways to avoid flights phobia includes according to experts include hypnotherapy, energy psychology, and neuro-linguistic programming.
Hypnotherapy, according to the aviation experts minimises the symptoms of travel phobia by reprogramming the existing thought patterns that are stored up in peoples’ subconscious, which brings about the fear.

Energy psychology is a new method of therapy that is compared to that of acupuncture and the needles. With energy psychology, the experts say a person with travel phobia will experience these benefits - thought patterns change fast, easily changed behaviors, and the person will easily develop skills and techniques that are useful to him for a lifetime.
Neuro-linguistic programming on the other hand works by changing the patient’s manner of creating reality.

It is better to recognize that travel phobia is an intense fear of something that poses no actual danger. Adults suffering from it realize that such fears are irrational. They often find out that facing it or even thinking about it brings a panic attack or severe anxiety.

Specialists usually advise passengers to ensure that they note what led to the first air phobia. It could be a strong jolting, long landing approach, or unscheduled landing.
As soon as the first fear trigger is detected, passengers are advised to answer a question such as "if all of the previous flights they have experienced went well, must this lead to a tragedy?"

It is further recommended by experts that the best way to overcome travel phobia is to fly more frequently as every successful flight operations will change into a positive notion that all the past air mishaps and accidents reported only happened as an exception rather than the true situations in the subsequent events.

Media are also urged to educate flying publics on flying phobia and shift from the horror way of reporting air catastrophes.

As travel phobia is a serious obstacle to daily life and traveling is unavoidable part of human existence, every person who suffers from this should be given every opportunity for treatment.

E-mail: felixklutse@yahoo.com