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In regional news, a Saipan lawmaker wants to strengthen whistleblower protections for government employees. Rep. Leila Staffler introduced the Commonwealth-wide Whistleblower Protection Act of 2021 to expand the scope of what's currently on the books for all Government employees.
"I looked up the whistleblower statute just to see what is it, to see how it applies right now and this was it in its entirety. Or is it entirely because my bill is still in the process. But that's it! One page, not even a full page. And it only really was applicable to making a complaint on information to the public auditor it did not really expand beyond the public auditor for waste and abuse and collection of funds," she said.
She says she wants to protect those working for the government and its something she's heard a lot about from her constituents when it comes to ethical issues in government.
"Looking at that I started researching with my awesome teams in the legislature to find ways that we could expand these protections to include personnel practices in particular. Its also going to create a way for payout for people to report waste and abuse in the current statute it does not have a mechanism for payouts," she said.
She outlined some of the whistleblowing cases she's heard of, saying, "People have said what is going on. They stopped that thing, but they could not get the reward because there is no mechanism to get the reward. So that is one of the things that was fixed in my...
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