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ONCE upon a time, I acted as consultant for a foreign-run company. Due to its many breaches of labour law, disgruntled former staff lodged police reports. Among the complaints were non-payment of EPF and non-payment of Socso. In the end, unhappy employees and former employees managed to get the company into massive trouble with the authorities due to its use of unlicensed software.

The staff members were displeased, not only because of these issues, but also because of late payment of salaries and unreasonable management directives. In hindsight, I wonder whether the staff and former staff would have done any whistleblowing if they had been happy with the overall situation at the company. Would they have complained about unlicensed software if their salaries were paid on time, for example?

Whistleblowing in business is not really a trend in Malaysia, except when it affects the market.

The flipside of the coin is obviously integrity and ethics, something the authorities are trying to instil into businesses nationwide. For example, the Malaysian Alliance of Corporate Directors, which has the backing of the Securities Commission and Bursa Malaysia, was founded to promote ethics and integrity among corporate leadership in the country. And, of course, we have our Malaysian Institute of Integrity, established to create a culture of integrity in Malaysia’s society.

To further boost integrity, under the recently passed Whistleblower Protection Bill, informants who give  information on wrongdoings in the private and public sectors to enforcement agencies will be safeguarded. Whistleblowers will also be granted immunity from civil and criminal action.

Furthermore, cash rewards will be given to encourage Malaysians to disclose malfeasance.

You see, integrity is so vital that if we had it – really, really had it – we might not need mechanisms like the Whistleblowers Protection Act or the fifth estate calling for greater transparency, integrity and ethics. But at the very basic level, one would be hard pressed to find even simple legislative compliance among many business organisations, as seen in my example of the company using unlicensed software.

Of course, whistleblowing of basic non-compliance of corporate law and regulations usually falls into the hands of the auditors, company secretaries and also, more recently, the non-executive directors of a company. Currently, the usual form of whistleblowing deals with financial issues in relation to the business, such as misstatements of accounts, window dressing of financial documents, fraud etc.

But back to my question: what of other laws, and what if everybody were happy? Let’s take, as a hypothetical example, a firm which holds itself out as a specialist in corporate governance. What if most of their foreign interns were working in the country without a permit? Or let’s take another hypothetical example of a company which holds itself out as a human resources specialist and one of its senior executives actively pursues the romantic liaison of a recent hire.

Let’s say employees at both  companies are happy. Is there a need to blow the whistle? Do the employees owe a duty to tell the authorities? Why? Wouldn’t the whistleblowing employees be subject to victimisation, from both the management and fellow workers? If it is given that whistleblowers are usually unhappy about something, doesn’t that make the Whistleblowers Protection Act subject to abuse?

Or should these businesses be taken to task because it is a matter of integrity?

Ethics, integrity and whistleblowing are such grey areas, especially in our developing nation. We have our business norms, and sometimes breaking these norms is unheard of, even when there’s a clear cut right and wrong course of action. I cannot imagine how much worse it is in a situation when the black and white are so much greyer.

Daniel freelances in writing and publishing, and has a deep passion for sleeping, eating and labour law. Comments: letters@thesundaily.com