 Luncheon The Critical Role of Whistle Blowing in Our Societies Friday 12 October 2007
The lot of a corporate whistle blower is rarely a happy one. This grim reality quickly emerged from this in depth discussion on the importance of highlighting illegal or shady practices, be they in the corporate or government spheres. In a wide ranging talk, Marianne Camerer, the International Director of Global Integrity, explained that a few high profile whistle blowers go on to become international media stars. Sherron Watkins, the former Vice President of Corporate Development at the Enron Corporation who is widely credited with blowing the whistle that led to the downfall of the ill-fated utilities giant was cited as an example. But, most who try to bring to light wrongdoing find their actions lead to them being shunned in their professional lives. “It’s true that unless you become a celebrity you could find yourself out of a job and possibly seen a snitch or a traitor,” she said. “You may think twice about blowing the whistle if you are economically dependent on your employer. Sometimes you may have agreed to a gagging or confidentiality clause when you signed your employment contract,” she added. Even Watkins probably only came out of the Enron scandal as well as she did because the company collapsed so soon after she had highlighted the shady practices that led to its downfall, Camerer argued. This culture of stigmatizing whistle blowers rather than hailing them for having the courage to highlight wrongdoing or inappropriate practices went to the highest level, she suggested. The case of former US Ambassador Jospeh Wilson and his wife was held up an example. In 2002 Wilson was sent to Niger in order find evidence that the country was supplying the Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein with uranium. He found none, and wrote a classified report for his superiors confirming this. Despite the report, US President George W. Bush announced in a 2003 address to the nation that Niger was believed to have supplied uranium to Saddam. In response to Bush’s speech Wilson wrote a now famous editorial in the New York Times entitled “What I didn’t find in Iraq,” in which he confirmed that he had found no evidence of uranium. As a result, Wilson suffered a sustained effort to discredit him and his wife was revealed to the press as a CIA agent working under the name of Valerie Plame. An investigation into the leaking of Wilson’s wife’s identity eventually led to the prosecution of Lewis Libby, a senior aide to US Vice President Dick Cheney. The fact that whistle blowers like Wilson still seem to face such high level opposition to their actions is a serious problem, Camerer said. In the corporate world, she argued that companies must put in place structures that allow whistle blowers to make their concerns known internally as a first step. “The organization has an obligation to create a space for whistleblowers,” she added. Without this space, and the confidence that their concerns will be dealt with seriously if they turn out to be true, whistleblowers have to make their voice heard outside of their firms, often to the media, and that can have a devastating effect on a company, she argued. Women had a particular role to play in encouraging a shift in attitudes towards whistle blowers, said René Ricol, President of Ricol, Lasteyrie & Associés. This was because women for some reason tended to be less likely to dabble in corrupt or illegal corporate practices than men, he said. “Men think they can get involved in corruption if it is in what they see as the interest of their firm or their country,” he argued. Women, on the other hand, tended to have a more absolute idea of right and wrong. Returning to the issue of just why it was so important for employees or even ordinary citizens to blow the whistle on dubious practices, Camerer was very clear. “This about calling attention to harmful acts. Being a whistleblower can save lives and reputations and it plays a really important role in terms of creating a climate of trust,” she said. In such cases, questions of loyalty to a corrupt firm had to take second place to more important core values, she said. “The public interest overrides all of that. Fraud unravels everything.” ___________________________ |