The Sunday News
Dumisani Nsingo, Senior Business Reporter
THE Government will review the Whistle Blower Facility amid revelations of gross abuse of the scheme by some unscrupulous individuals bent on clandestinely soliciting for unwarranted rewards from the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) for divulging tax evading businesses.
In his 2019 National Budget statement on Thursday last week, Finance and Economic Development Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube said there was a need to review the Whistle Blower Facility to ensure informants were rewarded by virtue of supplying tangible information.
The pronouncement by the minister suggests that the facility was prone to abuse.
“Although this initiative has resulted in the recovery of substantial amounts of tax revenue, challenges have been experienced regarding the nature of information that should be acceptable for purposes of rewarding an informant.
“I, therefore, propose to review the Whistle Blower Facility to provide, among other measures, clarity on the nature of information that informants must supply before being entitled to a reward,” he said.
The Government in 2001 introduction the Whistle Blower Facility to enable informants to share information on such malpractices as tax avoidance and evasion by individuals and companies that compromised tax revenue collections.
Under the facility, persons who submitted information leading to the recovery of undeclared tax revenue were entitled to a reward equivalent to 10 percent of the amount recovered.
However, it is believed that some uncouth individuals are taking advantage of low tax compliance to misuse the whistle-blower facility and benefit from the 10 percent “reward”.
The whistle-blower facility is open to members of the public, except Zimra officers, to come forward to Zimra with tangible information which enables the authority to recover revenue that otherwise would have been lost had the whistle-blower not come forward.
The whistle-blower laws are enshrined in the Zimra Act (Chapter 23:11) under Section 34 B.
According to Section 34 B, subsection 2 of the Act, the commissioner-general may, with the approval of the Finance Minister, award any person, not being an employee of the authority, or a near relative of an employee of the authority, a monetary reward for information provided or any measure taken which results in detection of smuggling or any illegal and underhand activities and of the recovery of revenue which would otherwise have been lost.
@DNsingo
