WHISTLEBLOWER CAMPAIGN “...Нэгдье” - a Paper fight?!

One day I woke up and saw all these billboards in Ulaanbaatar streets of gents and women blowing yellow whistles with the motto “…Нэгдье”. Well done in terms of advertising, no question about it. Because I am familiar with compliance management standards, and a whistleblowing system is one of the most important services we provide in our consulting business, I instantly saw a whistleblower. Then I asked my wife: “Do you know what these boards are about?” She replied: "Crappy way to sell some yellow whistles. Why would one need whistles? What a shitty business that must be.” She gave me laughs and I thought: “MONGOLIZATION. Again.”

Most Mongols do not know what the whistleblowing system is and who is a whistleblower. In our minds, it is a policeman or a protester who is shouting out some demands at Sukhbaatar square in front of the Government building. What a pitty way to start a whistleblower campaign where no one knows the true meaning of a whistleblower and how it works.

Then I started to research about? “... Нэгдье” campaign. It turned out that our Government under the “5 W” or as we people called it “5 Sweeps” initiative, the Ministry of Justice and Home Affairs declared a whistleblower campaign against corruption in Mongolia. Certainly, officials from our Ministry who announced the campaign have no idea how it works, since the culture of whistleblowers is quite malicious in Mongolia, where a regular Mongol thinks that a whistleblower is a rat, a police pet/informant, or mostly a snitch(Олиоч).

Just because a guy from the Ministry gave an interview on a national TV show and spoke about it at some Standing Committee in Parliament does not make the whole whistleblower culture appear out of nowhere. Moreover, there was no work done at the state organizations on how to blow a whistle on illegal and immoral wrongdoing, not mentioning GRC (Governance, Risk, and Compliance Management) standards and related training. Businesses don’t know about this system a damn thing, except those from abroad who are already familiar with it. Trust me when I say it since we have been pushing our Whistleblower system product to businesses for the last 10 years in Mongolia.

So, the term “Whistleblower” is totally NEW to Mongolia even today. And to assume that with the “... Нэгдье” announcement all of a sudden, everybody would perfectly understand the system and would happily go with it. Reminds me of a playground in the kindergarten where one child wants to play a game with the rest when no one knows the rules of it. Naive, I’d say, but at least it is some start.

What is the “5 Sweep” initiative? ?

In February this year, our Government initiated “5 W (5Ш) initiative against corruption” to improve Mongolia’s Corruption Index Rating. Quite serious intentions I’d say but people call it a “Paper Sweep”:

1)????? Sweep the corruption with the help of whistleblowers

2)????? Sweep the corruptors from the public jobs

3)????? Sweep the corruptors finding them around the world

4)????? Sweep the corruptors by getting back corrupt offshore money

5)????? Sweep the corruptors with total transparency.

As usual, so bold and loud promises and mottos on the paper such as we kill corruption, punish and sweep every corruptor, get the corruption money back from offshores to Mongolia, and yadda yadda so on. Mongols love to dream big but are very poor at achieving their dreams. Why people do not believe in it? Because it is the sixth promise of those in power to kill and burn to ashes the corruption in Mongolia from the day we ratified the UN Convention Against Corruption in 2005. Do you think six is a charm? Let’s see what really has happened here and who was swept in real life.

Sweep #1. Anti-Corruption Agency swept.

Finally, the Government put its hands on the Anti-Corruption Agency which was at the disposal of the Parliament of Mongolia. The Government swept out the right of Parliament to appoint the Chief of the Anti-Corruption Agency to itself. Now it is up to the Prime Minister to appoint the Chief of the sole agency who should monitor the Prime Minister and every government official for corruption. Anekdotic situation. Would you punish yourself if you do wrong? Unless you are some freaking psycho maniac, of course, you will find some excuse for your wrongdoing, and your co-workers too.

Today, every corruption investigation of government officials is now in the hands of the Government through the appointed Chief of the Agency, so I tend to think that they are sorting out the cases in order to decide whom to forgive and whom to punish. That instantly makes you a godfather of corruption in Mongolia. And wait, there is more. Many say now that the Corruption investigation and court hearing were closed selectively on the grounds of the limitation period (1 year and 6 months) and/or lack of sufficient evidence since that day.

The moment of transferring the powers to the Prime Minister – the Government in 2020, reports to the international community lost their credibility so Transparency International had to appoint its own international team to audit the corruption index of Mongolia. And you know what? We steadily dropped down again from 116th to 119th place in rating in the corruption index for the 10th year in a row for the year 2022.

This sweep untied the hands of the Government to initiate a Paper Sweep operation when you fight so furiously on paper but in real life, many corruptors went free. Just to remind you a couple of cases I gave in my last article, the “Bond theft”, the “Coal Theft” and the “Erdenes Tavan Tolgoi” case when its CEO (former Parliamentarian) was caught in the crime scene with half a million of US dollars in bribes, to which he plead guilty and still got away on pretenses of the limitation period.

?

Sweep #2. General Agency for Specialized Investigations (GASI) swept.

Any meaningful compliance control and monitoring of any standards nationwide were delegated from that specialized agency to relevant ministries and their officials. Back to the Stone Age. Standard compliance could be a history soon in Mongolia. Proof of that? Many disasters and disrepencies occurred – natural and mismanagement.

Hot water. More than a million people were cut off from hot water for months as standard monitoring went missing. People were worried about what happened but not one official would explain why half of the city was out of hot water this summer. ?

Electricity. This year Ulaanbaatar experienced an unprecedented cut of electricity, breakdowns of local and micro-level electrical shields were everywhere, people were living without electricity for days and in some places for weeks.?

Flood. We have the same type of heavy rain EVERY SUMMER. However, Ulaanbaatar City Hall with no monitoring of the safety standards forgot about the annual heavy rain. And, 1,5 million people got mixed up with “Ger district” excrements having children and pregnant women heavily infected, six people died, hundreds were injured, lost their homes, businesses, and jobs, and got their equity (vehicles and belonings) flushed away.

Asian Development Bank's study on the flood in Ulaanbaatar clearly concluded many points among them the grievance redress mechanism, compensation and support standards, relocation strategy, budget and financing, implementation schedule, and of course monitoring and evaluation. What did City Hall do? They waited for ADB funds as usual. So, pathetic and annoying! And, the same people who swore to protect the city are now blaming a couple of companies just to avoid responsibility for the damages of millions of dollars that occurred, not to mention the people who suffered their lives and limbs. ?

I do not know what else has happened, but the more we govern “the Mongolian way”, the more suffering I see. The small piece of the guarantee of a stable life that was in our hands is clearly being washed away little by little.

And of course, my question here would be: Has anyone exposed any wrongdoing through the whistleblowing campaign “…Нэгдье”? Everyone seems to pretend that everything is in order, although in reality, it is not. When will we learn to clean up our own shit? Always waiting for handouts from the IMF, ADB, and the World Bank, it's so disgusting.

Sweep #3. NOW, whistleblower campaign sweep.

Again, it is evident to me that this campaign “…Нэгдье” is destined to fail. The Whistleblower task is too tough for the campaign team at the Ministry of Justice and Home Affairs to make it real. Again, life practice teaches them a tough lesson, ?without sufficient experience, you just poke in the sky with no clue what to expect.

Such a system is brand new to our governing system. Best practices of the Whistleblower system usually suggest implementing it on multiple governance levels: starting from national and industrial to organizational and down to the individual.

So what are the mistakes of the Mongolian whistleblower campaign “… Нэгдье!”.

First, the law draft on Protecting Whistleblowers is still in the review process at the Parliament, which gives one no legal protection but the blunt excitement of announcing some works with no proper preparation. We call it out of sheer excitement (сэтгэлийн х??рл??р). Potemkinism kept from the Soviet era when we pretend to doing a job (ажил хийсэн д?р эсгэх) on paper with no proper outcome and still get paid.

Secondly, any whistleblower system is introduced under that set of governing management standards such as Quality management (ISO 9001), Auditing and Compliance management (ISO 19011 & Iso 19600), Anti-Corruption management (ISO 37001), and even Whistleblower management standard (ISO 37002) is at hand and non of them was introduced to state or business organizations.

This means these and other related management standards must be established in every state and government organization before announcing the whistleblower campaign, not after. That is exactly what the whistleblower management standard is suggesting to build up the whistleblowing CULTURE through the culture of training. ?

How would they know if they are not the once who practice them I’d say. True. However, they have every power to initiate a collaboration with us, meaning consulting firms, who knows this shit, and yet they failed here too. ?

I bet they would stand at Pearly Gates and kick St. Peter right in the teeth before letting others teach them and be involved. However, they would NEED EVERY HELP they can get if they fight for real (not on paper), especially help from professionals and experts in this field.

We, as a consulting firm, tried to reach out and meet with the campaign team leader Solongo B., Vice Minister at the Ministry of Justice and stuck with the empty bureaucracy promise to meet us for the third month already. So, as I said, it's a paper fight.

Thirdly, such regulatory management standards at the organizational level should be carried out under the direction and control of INDEPENDENT consulting firms. Why? Potemkinism is the main cliché here, and introducing a new standard of management for a public (civil) servant who, usually, has no idea about it, is the same as a nurse pretending to know how to operate. Let the experts do their job and monitor it independently. Why independence? Very simply - you need to answer the question: Would you fairly evaluate your work if you were given such power? Of course not, you would rate your work as EXCELLENT all the time, no matter your failures (in fact, that is exactly what happens in Mongolia).

And at last, with our corruptive culture and monkey see monkey do style, it would be nearly impossible to blow a whistle on any illegal or unethical conduct in my opinion. Moreover, the law draft on protecting whistleblowers is already 7 years in the review stage at the Parliament and soon it could be on a forgotten list. And it is Mongolized so hard that one who is familiar with this system would not recognize it. To be honest, MONGOLIZATION has already taken place in that law draft, which is the next article title.

So on, I can name many errors but at the end of the day, we still have a Paper fight where unfortunately, a vital system of democracy, protection of human rights, and fighting illegal, immoral wrongdoing. Soon it will be just another historical failure discrediting the whistleblower system in the eyes of regular Mongols.

Who is a whistleblower?

Before explaining what is whistleblower concept is and how the whistleblower system works properly we need to understand who is a whistleblower. ????

"Whistleblowers play an essential role in exposing corruption, fraud, mismanagement, and other wrongdoing that threaten public health and safety, financial integrity, human rights, the environment, and the rule of law. By disclosing information about such misdeeds, whistleblowers have helped save countless lives and billions of dollars in public funds, while preventing emerging scandals and disasters from worsening." (Transparency International: INTERNATIONAL PRINCIPLES FOR WHISTLEBLOWER LEGISLATION, 2013)

That definition is quite substantial and determines who is a whistleblower and in what circumstances they would blow a whistle. With all different connotations and definitions, as I see, a WHISTLEBLOWER has the following basic attributes:

1)????? It is a person, which can be a private person, and/or an entity. In practice, most of them want to keep their identity confidential so individuals at work more often report to specialized whistleblowing organizations that are independent from government financing. Sometimes, we see private individuals, who are already in the situation of “nothing to lose” and coming out to the public to blow a whistle. The latter coming out always is a lifetime hard experience, since society might get misguided by the media, and, publicly condemn the whistleblower, harming his/her private life and work reputation forever. In some cases entities come out with a whistleblower, very common for countries with relevant legislation, to enjoy its benefits, such as tax deduction or exemption, and whistleblower’s monetary incentives.

?

2)????? Crearly it raises concern about the illegal, immoral, and illicit behavior of someone in power of something not just the corruption. Thus a whistleblower is NOT a “rat”, “informant” or “snitch” as initially was met in social media in Mongolia. How could possibly someone who reports on ILLEGAL and UNETHICAL conduct for public interest would be a “Shitch” or “RAT”? “Ratting” on what and what for? On ILLEGAL and UNETHICAL conduct for the PUBLIC INTEREST? Certainly, those who do illegal and unethical things are the ones who want to discredit whistleblowers in society so no one would accept them.

?

3)????? Concern does NOT need to be supported by hard or concrete evidence, it can only be a suspicion unless proven otherwise. Even after the suspicion has not been proven, anxiety is not considered punishable. After all, what should someone be afraid of who hasn't done anything illegal or unethical? Let yourself be checked and be on your way. Like a law-abiding driver have yourself checked at a routine DIU Police check-up and go on.

?

4)????? Reporting must be made in “good faith” and on “reasonable grounds”. This means that individuals and entities who deliberately make false disclosures (some thoughts will be in my next article) should not be afforded whistleblower protection. Some laws expressly refer to this, for example, Korea’s ACRC states that “a person who reports an act of corruption despite the fact that he or she knew that his/her report was false shall not be protected by this Act.” However, whistleblower protection laws would not normally impose sanctions for misguided reporting, and protection would be afforded to disclosures that are made in honest error. This moment must be clearly expressed so there be no vagueness between honest error and deliberate false accusations.?

So, in what circumstances a whistleblower would blow a whistle in “good faith” or on “reasonable grounds”?

a)? Whistleblowers want favorable conditions and a safe whistleblowing culture at the workplace for reporting, such as proper and clear rules and mechanisms for safe reporting.

b)? To be protected at all times, meaning they may reveal their identity to the public, but in real life, almost all of them want to stay anonymous and safe, since their public, private, and work reputation is on the line.

c)? Reporting behavior is not limited by illegal and illicit content but also may qualify as immoral and unethical. Meaning that reporting any immoral and/or unethical misbehavior goes beyond any crime or misdemeanor understanding, and, since it is usually done at the workplace, which in turn involves labor and corporate legal environment for businesses.

d)? Whistleblowers want to be protected even after the investigation of their reports was conducted with no proven results. Stay anonymous all the time.

f)?? Whistleblowers cannot and would not report if there are no clear and proper reporting channels with protected mechanisms, such as a reporting hotline and/or web communication. And these channels should protect their identity at all costs, preferably under the designated law statutes. For public servants reporting any illegal, illicit, and unethical conduct is their duty, for failure to report they may be accused of accomplice.

g)? Whistleblowing concerns not only the government but also the businesses, so if businesses encourage whistleblowers incentives could be granted with monetary up to releasing from certain taxes.?

h)? Retaliation of whistleblowers and/or revealing their identity without legal consent can lead to serious criminal consequences and high fines.

Who do the whistleblowers want to submit a report?

Certainly, not government enforcement agencies as “…Нэгдье” campaign wishes, as there is a high potential risk of identity loss, so they are more likely to turn to middle-man specialized agencies, firms, NGOs, or organizations such as Speak-OUT, National Whistleblower Center or FaceUp.

What if the report is false, what happens then?

In most countries, the whistleblower's identity remains anonymous and their rights are protected even though the report investigation gave nothing but a false alarm. However, the whistleblower is listed in a potential false accuser list with a potential following adding him/her to a blacklist if that case repeatedly occurs.

Retaliation?

According to an OECD study on whistleblowers, Retaliation in best foreign practices for whistleblowing usually presents itself in the form of disciplinary actions or harassment in the workplace. Therefore, the legislation focuses on providing ample protection of the whistleblower’s employment status, including unfair dismissal. For instance, South Africa prohibits whistleblowers from being subject to any disciplinary actions and provides one of the most comprehensive lists of measures for protection. Along these same lines, the 2007 French Law on the Fight against Corruption provides broad employment protection for persons that, in good faith, have reported acts of corruption acknowledged in the exercise of their functions, and cannot be excluded from recruitment and internships, or be disciplined, dismissed or discriminated.

Implementations and legislations may cover all direct, indirect, and future consequences of reprisal, and can vary from a return to employment after unfair termination, transfers to comparable job positions, compensations where they have suffered harms that cannot be remedied by injunctions, and difficulty or impossibility to find a new job and suffering, and criminal sanctions for the employers when they take retaliatory actions, like in Canada and the U.S. German law allots claims for damages (Schadensersatzansprüche) and/or claims for compensation (Entsch?digungsansprüche) for the whistleblower.

Moreover, when protection is not provided or the remedy is insufficient, whistleblowers have the right to take action in court proceedings. Physical and psychological threats are subject to criminal law and must be punished severely.

Overall, when you study all the best practices around the world, one thing is sure in MONGOLIZATION there is always something to learn from the best. And the world is a very large pond I’d say. The Whistleblower campaign of our Government is a very much-needed action indeed, but it was announced with no proper preparation and without counseling with national and international experts in such a specialized area.

So what do you think now? Will one blow a whistle on corruption in Mongolia with all the above said, now? I’d bet not.