Money for exposing a corrupt official: how to report bribery and earn money

Illustrative photo from open sources

From now on, in Ukraine, you can make money by reporting on an unclean official or bribery. You can "turn in" a corrupt person for a reward on the Unified whistleblower notification portal. A special platform was launched a week ago by the NAZK.

If, thanks to the notification, the court finds someone guilty and decides to collect money, the whistleblower will be able to count on 10% of this amount.

Anastasiya Renkas, head of the development department of the Disclosure Institute, told about this on the air of the national telethon. 

"As you can see – the number on the portal – 194 messages since September 6. This is a fairly high number of messages, and 60 of them are already in the works. This indicates that our society is ready for such actions and is ready to fight corruption…

We always emphasize that there is no small or big corruption. Corruption is either there or it is not. So ideally we are in favor of people reporting any breaches of the anti-corruption law…

Linking to the amount of the offense only matters when paid out Whistleblower rewards will follow. After all, any corruption offense can be reported through the single portal for reporting whistleblowers… We and the state guarantee whistleblowers the right to anonymity and confidentiality. Since the facts are subject to verification, they can only be announced after the verification is complete.

A whistleblower is a natural person who is aware of information about corruption and believes in the legitimacy of this information. And this information is directly related to her work or professional activities. It can be a certain activity, for example, participation in a competition for a certain position, it can be related to participation in public procurement. If even one of these criteria is missing, the person is considered an applicant and cannot receive a reward. The reward is provided only to the whistleblower according to the requirements of the law. 

A whistleblower is a certain immunity, and it is this legal status that provides certain guarantees of protection to people who report wrongdoing and corruption within the system. 

The whistleblower is guaranteed protection of physical and property rights . The whistleblower is also guaranteed labor protection. It is expressly forbidden to apply to the whistleblower any measures of a negative nature related to his work.

For example, a whistleblower cannot be transferred to another job without his consent, conduct certification, reduce wages…

There are several conditions for the payment of this reward. First, there must be a notification of a corruption criminal offense.

The amount of damage caused to the state or the amount of unlawful benefit must be 5,000 times or more higher than the subsistence minimum for able-bodied persons, established at the time of the commission crime And from this amount, the person has the right to receive 10%", – said Anastasia Renkas. 

Prepared by Serhiy Daga