Cosatu wants better protection for whistle blowers

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Cosatu spokesman Patrick Craven. Photo: Nonhlanhla Kambule

Cosatu wanted the Protection of State Information Bill to be amended to give better protection against “whistle blowers” who want to expose corruption, its spokesman Patrick Craven said on Tuesday.

“The Bill must be amended so that exposing information about corruption, crime, misuse of public money or incompetence, in the public interest, can never be a criminal offence,” spokesman Patrick Craven said in the federation's Workers' Day statement.

One of the Congress of SA Trade Unions' concerns about the bill was that whistle blowers could be silenced by finding that the evidence of corruption they have uncovered has been classified as “secret”.

It would be the whistle blowers and not “the corrupt offenders” who land up in court with the threat of prison for revealing secret information. - Sapa