The risks taken by whistleblowers in Africa to reveal the scandals

The whistleblower and former banker Jean-Jacques Lumumba on October 16, 2019 (Illustrative image).

© AFP / THOMAS SAMSON

Text by: RFI Follow

5 mins

The Platform for the Protection of Whistleblowers in Africa (PPLAAF), has just published a report reviewing the main cases revealed in Africa over the past 3 years.

Luanda Leaks in Angola, Lumumba Papers in the DRC or even the scandal of state capture in South Africa ... These revelations have made the highest circles of African countries tremble.

But whistleblowers are taking risks to expose these scandals.

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In three years, the platform for the protection of whistleblowers will have publicly supported a dozen whistleblowers on the continent, but assures in its report that " 

many others preferred to remain anonymous

 ".

Exile, arrest, loss of employment ...

Exposing a financial scandal or a case of corruption can indeed be expensive for whistleblowers.

This was the case for Jean-Jacques Lumumba in the DRC.

In 2016, a senior executive within the BGFI bank, he revealed suspicious transactions involving the regime of President Kabila.

The case, nicknamed

the “

 Lumumba Papers

, is in the hands of justice.

But the whistleblower now lives in exile in Europe after threats in his country.

Noureddine Tounsi denounced corruption at the port of Oran in Algeria in 2017. He was arrested in September 2020 and is being prosecuted for espionage.

Reprisals according to the PPLAFF, while the NGO recalls that the investigations into the scandal revealed by the whistleblower are not progressing.

In Mali,

Fadiala Coulibaly

, an accountant, revealed a network of embezzlement intended for cotton farmers in 2017, but he lost his job for his commitment.

But despite these risks, the situation of whistleblowers is gradually changing according to Fadel Baro, co-founder of the citizen movement "

Y'en a marre 

" in Senegal.

He is the Pplaaf coordinator for West Africa.

He takes stock of the situation on the continent:

We know journalists, activists and human rights defenders in general.

They have frameworks and platforms that support them.

But whistleblowers are people who often suffer reprisals from their companies.

Fadel Baro: "Whistleblowers are the poor relations of the fight against corruption"

Jeanne Richard

►Read the 2020 Pplaaf report (in English)

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  • DRC

  • Mali

  • Algeria