Eveline Herfkens the sleek Dutch Social-Democrat and girlfriend of Ad Melkert, was double charging for her New York Residence:
1) UNDP = $2500 per month rental subsidy;
2) Dutch Government = $ 7000 per month rent;
On top of an ASG salary of almost $250,000.00 per year, this pro-poor advocate was certainly enjoying her life in the big apple. Eventhough she almost never actually leaved in this residence, since she was never in New York for that matter.
Documents obtained from UNDP Watch show that Eveline Herfkens has been traveling the world on UNDP expense, on top of all her perks.
For 4 years the Dutch Government paid $84,000 dollars per year for a total of close to $400,000 Dollars for the rent of Herfkens apartment. All this on top of the rent subsidy claimed from UNDP, which was close to $2500 per month, mounting to an additional $120,000 dollars.
What makes this story even more beautiful is that while the Dutch Government was paying her rent, she had already changed her nationality from Dutch to American (green-card-holder).
So practically the Dutch Government Was Paying for an American in New York.
Another aspect is that while she had changed her nationality, and currently is an american, she still travels with a Dutch Diplomatic Passport.
The Dutch Government should demand back every penny of their contribution to paying the rent for Eveline.
ONLY AT THE UNITED NATIONS !!
5 comments:
When will this lady of exceptional qualifications realise how despicable her behaviour has been and call it a day?
Fact is, UNDP is fundamentally devoid of merit, transparency, internal governance. Many good, qualified, and committeed people are suffering because of the actions of a few.
In light of this, their talk about development, gender, equality and what-not are meaningless buzzwords and slogans they use as a palliative for their guilty conscience. Their systems, procedures, and policies are not worth the paper they are printed on.
Mr Secretary-General, please renovate the senior management team at the same you are renovating the office building. The removal of Pasha and Lockwood is a good first step, but dont let it end there.
The spinmeistres are at work again. Similar to the games that were played in DC last April at the World Bank:
http://www.undp.org/for-the-record/index.shtml#statement
This is an interesting para wrt the article published by Vrij Nederland:
"UNDP is not aware of ANY rules Ms. Herfkens has broken to further her own interests. The moment she found out that her application for permanent residency in the U.S. was inconsistent with the terms of her contract, she immediately informed the appropriate UNDP officials and resigned from that contract."
One moved out of NYC on Jan 2006 whilst still in a 75% ASG capacity so that one can apply for a Green Card (permanent residency and permission to work w/o a G-4 visa) , which presumably was filed at that time.
In March 2007 ( whilst being on a 200 series fixed term appointment- how can a fixed term be prorated 90% ?!!!) one woke up and realized that one is breaking the rules and decided to forgo all the tax free contracts and agreed on a SSA contract ( to be kosher with Uncle Sam- this won't look good if one has to apply for US citizenship in the coming yrs, is it?) at the daily rate of $750.00 plus incidentals.
One SSA contract with UNDP, may be a concurrent consulting job with the World Bank, ability to be director on some Boards- who knows!!! All in the name of eradicating POVERTY
Isn't UNDP picking up the tabs for the hotel rooms of a certain ex-PM who is working to bring peace to the ME and was also hired by JP Morgan yesterday? And one wonders about the shelf-life of an ex-politico.
Do a stint as a politico boys and girls and you will be rewarded for life at the expense of those of those you are supposed to defend or work for :o
Ad Melkert has acted to enable and/or directly carry out a series of improper and destructive actions in connection to the Millennium Project (MP), including the recent absorption of the 20+ members of the MP staff into full-time UNDP positions with no normal hiring procedures and at levels out of line with their training, experience and competence.
Melkert directly carried out this process and spoke (in front of many witnesses at a December 2006 meeting with the Poverty Group staff) of the complete irrelevance of normal personnel rules in cases where the Adminstrator Kemal Dervis wanted something done. The waste and corruption in UNDP should be charged against the Dervis-Melkert account, as they are working as a seamless unit re the MP.
The Eveline Herfkens case is a further step along this road -- part of a pattern of waste and high living in the very program formally committed to an all-out war on poverty.
The secret salary paid to Jeffrey Sachs, while he publicly claimed the mantel of pro bono advocate of the poor comes from exactly the same source, although in this case MMB set the Sachs charade in motion and Dervis-Melkert only continued it.
Two further points:
What is the support for the "girl friend" of Melkert status attributed to Eveline Herfkens? This is stated in a way that suggests a romance rather than business-political link. Is this true?
Second, it is not correct to say that someone with a "green card" has changed their nationality. Holding a green card while employed by the United Nations has long been forbidden, but that is another matter.
Interesting information, but it also raises some questions:
1. How did UNDP-Watch learn that Ms. Herfkens has applied for (and received) more than USD2,000.- in rental subsidies per month from UNDP? Hence, without a live-in partner (Ms. Herfkens' partner was in Washington) it would not be possible to collect such an amount (source: http://www.sas.undp.org/portal/alias__SAS/lang__en-GB/tabID__3575/DesktopDefault.aspx ). Also: this allegation has not been made anywhere else.
2. How can Ms. Herfkens hold American nationality? Greencard-holders are not US-citizens.
Look forward to hear more interesting details!
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