Herfkens has damaged reputations, says BosMonday 28 January 2008
Diplomat and Labour party member Eveline Herfkens' behaviour has damaged the reputation of her party, the foreign affairs ministry, the United Nations and herself, according to Labour finance minister Wouter Bos.
Bos, speaking on Friday evening, was referring to Herfkens' acceptance of $280,000 from the Dutch state towards the rent on her New York flat, in breach of UN rules.
Foreign affairs minister Maxime Verhagen (Christian Democrat) and aid minister Bert Koenders (PvdA) also said Herfkens had received the money 'unjustly', according to ANP news service.
Herfkens was given help with paying her rent after being appointed as coordinator of the United Nations' millenium project to eradicate poverty. The payments later proved to be against UN regulations. When the case came to light earlier this month, Herfkens commented that she had been too busy to check.
The foreign affairs ministry is currently looking into whether it can demand repayment from Herfkens and whether other payments to staff in overseas organisations are in breach of the rules, reports ANP.
4 comments:
De echte onvervalste salonsocialist wordt gepakt, dat dit bericht wil laten voorkomen dat "hoge bomen veel wind vangen" geeft over de lagere goden in de Pvda een heel slecht beeld. Die worden dus niet gesnapt?
Leven dus vrij en vrolijk van 's Herensbelastingen??
Het is al een jaar of 14 dat ik roep : er moet een basis cursus voor politici komen. Inzake gelden, subsidies, wat vergoed men wel en niet, wat mag men aannemen en niet, hoeveel uitbestedingsoffertes dienen er te zijn voor er besloten wordt om.. enz.
Tragisch te constateren dat Den Uyl de laatste echte socialist was. Daarna kwamen Ritzen, Melkert, Pronk, Depla en Herfkens
Nice comment from someone on this site:
http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2008/01/mps_want_answers_on_un_officia.php
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 Administrator 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 mantle 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.
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