Wed, 04 Jun, 2014 12:01:22 AM FTimes Report, June 4 Minister for International Development Pekka Haavisto spoke on occasion of introducing the online suspicious abuse report on Tuesday. Photo – Lehtikuva. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs on Tuesday took into use an online service that anyone can use to report suspicions of abuse in relation to development cooperation.
The service is the first of its kind in the Finnish state administration, according to a press release of the ministry.
"Now anyone who suspects abuse involving development cooperation has the opportunity to press the red button, so to speak. Here the Ministry for Foreign Affairs leads the way for the entire state administration," Minister for International Development Pekka Haavisto said.
"Citizens must be able to trust that development cooperation funds go for the right purpose. That's why the threshold for reporting has been made as low as possible."
Notification can be given at www.vaarinkaytosilmoitus.fi. The service operates in Finnish, Swedish and English. If necessary, notification can also be given anonymously, according to the release.
The online service intensifies intervening in cases of abuse and improves risk management in development cooperation.
"Many developing countries have improved their own systems to the extent that notification can also be given through them. This is what happened recently in Tanzania. When necessary, misused funds will be recovered," Haavisto explained.
The other Nordic countries have a similar notification system in use.
The Swedish whistleblower system received 31 notifications in 2012 and the corresponding Norwegian service 35 while Denmark has received 90 notifications since 2005, the release mentioned.
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