Contractors, consultants and suppliers to the Bank will be subject to sanctions under the new whistleblowing policy.
The African Development Bank (AfDB) Group on Tuesday launched a six-month campaign to sensitise its internal and external stakeholders on its new whistleblowing policy, which was approved by its Board of Directors on January 19, 2023.
In a statement seen by APA, the banking institution explained that the initiative builds on the Bank Group’s 2007 Whistleblower and Complaints Handling Policy, which was considered one of the most progressive at the time, expressing the importance the institution attaches to the contributions of whistleblowers to its anti-corruption processes and its zero tolerance for any retaliation against them.
The new policy sets additional standards: members of the Bank’s Board of Directors and elected officials now fall under the disciplinary scope of the policy if they are found to have threatened or participated in retaliation against any party, internal or external, for reporting fraud and corruption in the Bank’s operations or for participating in audits, investigations, and disciplinary proceedings.
To strengthen its ability to protect external whistleblowers, the new policy classifies retaliation by external parties in the context of Bank Group-financed operations as obstruction, which is subject to exclusion in the Bank Group’s sanctions regime.
The campaign will run for six months at the Bank’s headquarters, regional and country offices, and in regional member countries.
The new whistleblower policy also ensures due process by providing temporary relief to individuals who are victims of retaliation pending the final resolution of their complaint, protecting the right of individuals who seek whistleblower protection against retaliation to appeal the Bank’s decisions, preserving the anonymity of whistleblowers by maintaining the confidentiality of its procedures, and protecting the right of whistleblowers to be informed of the status of their claims.
The Bank Group’s Boards of Governors have committed to reviewing the new policy in 2028, after five years of implementation, taking into account evaluation reports and stakeholder feedback.
In 2007, the U.S.-based Government Accountability Project (GAP) reviewed the Bank’s whistleblower policy and reported that the Bank Group was the first multilateral development bank to substantially comply with the whistleblower transparency reforms drafted by U.S. Senators Patrick Leahy (Democrat of Vermont) and Richard Lugar (Republican of Indiana) and signed into law in October 2005.
The 2007 policy “establishes a new standard to protect employees and others from potential retaliation for reporting fraud or corruption, [with] a job guarantee for successful whistleblowers who suffer retaliation,” according to GAP.
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