THE Personal Data Protection Act will protect, support and facilitate compensation for whistleblowers, along with raising trust and personal security while enhancing the war against graft in the country.

Zanzibar President Dr Hussein Ali Mwinyi made this remark on the new legislation at an event to commemorate the African Anti-corruption Day w at Nyamanzi Unguja in yesterday.

The Zanzibar Anticorruption and Economic Crimes Authority (ZAECA) was operating on earlier legislation, while the government conducted a review of the ZAECA facilitating law upon realising the need for reform to enhance the war against corruption, he said.

Among the changes is section 98 which sets out guidelines on privacy for individuals who assist the government with information on corruption, he said, noting that there are other laws administered by other institutions to protect whistleblowers, who help them to perform their duties.

The laws include the Civil Service Act of 2023, the Anti-Narcotics Act, number 8 of 2021 and the legislation covering witnesses, Act No. 9 of 2016, he said, underlining that the truth is that corruption derails institutional capability for carrying out development plans whose impacts cross borders.

Implementing various international protocols on corruption to which the country is a signatory will help in reaching intended goals, including supporting each other on expertise on legal facilitation of investigations, he stated.

He commended the work of ZAECA and the Prevention and Combating of Crime Bureau (PCCB) for taking a frontal role in the fight against the malpractice, informing the public on the effects of corruption on the country’s economy. “We need to rally behind them,” he declared.

From July 2022 to May 2024 ZAECA tracked and investigated 115 projects billed at 2trn/-, opening case files for 86 projects later presented to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) with 29 individuals charged in court.

ZAECA recovered upwards of 7.9bn/- stashed through illegal means like tax evasion and abuse of office, he affirmed, while Ridhiwani Kikwete, the Public Service and Good Governance deputy state minister in the President’s Office, said PCCB has put in place various strategies, where public servants engaging in graft activities stand to be arrested, he added.