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Leonard Ncube Bulawayo Bureau
GOVERNMENT should urgently craft legislation to protect whistleblowers and individuals who testify against those fingered in graft cases, the Zimbabwe Anti-Corruption Commission (ZACC) has said. Speaking at an anti-corruption conference which was held in Victoria Falls last week, ZACC deputy chairperson Dr Nanette Silukhuni said there is need to put in place mechanisms to protect citizens who would have provided information on cases of corruption.

She said while the Public Entities Corporate Governance Bill, which is on the cards to empower ZACC to investigate institutions, there is need for a law to specifically protect whistleblowers and witnesses for them to freely give evidence.
“The Bill will give us power and all I am saying is that ZACC is open for business. We want to receive cases and investigate them, hence the need for legislation improvement,” said Dr Silukhuni.

“For now we don’t have legislation that protects the whistle blower and witnesses and we have to learn from other countries in that regard. We need to introduce new legislation and this needs to be given strong attention for protection of witnesses and whistleblowers.”

She implored lawmakers to urgently realign corporate laws with the Constitution.
Dr Silukhuni said ZACC, which is expected to launch a national strategy on corruption, was also looking at decentralising its operations countrywide.

Currently, the anti-corruption watchdog has two offices in Harare.
Dr Silukhuni appealed to local authorities who may have offices to spare to “donate to ZACC”.