Italian tax authority introduces whistleblowing procedures

(ANSA) - Rome, February 26 - Italian tax officials can now report corruption within the inland revenue authority under new whistleblowing procedures announced on Thursday.
    The measures, inspired by procedures already in place in the United States and Britain, are set out in a 15-page booklet distributed to employees and should be extended to other sectors of the public administration in due course.
    "The message is: us against corruption," wrote inland revenue director Rosella Orlandi in a covering note, reassuring employees feeling compelled to blow the whistle on colleagues that reports would be made under condition of anonymity and that they would receive appropriate protection against possible backlash. "The employee who makes a report? cannot be likened to an informant" but is "a precious voluntary collaborator", she said.
    "If we intend to continue the fight against tax avoidance we must first be the emblem of legality and honesty," Rosella continued. "We are not allowed to fall into an ethical slumber or to entertain the feeling of intermittent honesty," she concluded.