EIIRP issues a devastating report on UNDP North Korea, Dervis prepares desperate last spin - while EU & World Capitals express concern

Last nite at 5:05 pm, with almost four hours delay the External Independent Investigative Review Panel (EIIRP) who was investigating UNDP Operations in North Korea, handed over to the office of Kemal Dervis and Ban Ki-moon their "Report" with findings and deliberations.

In the words of a staff at the Office of the Secretary General, the report "is devastating for UNDP and its management":

Among the findings of the report, Nemeth/EIIRP acknowledge that:

• UNDP was aware since mid 1990's about its wrong operations modalities and implementation of its programming in North Korea;


• UNDP had failed to implement any recommendations of its own audits to DPRK office made in 1999, 2002, 2004, and acknowledge that to the day EIIRP was reviewing UNDP had still 63 pending recommendations (not-implemented in OAPR software);


• UNDP was aware of the presence of counterfeit in its safe, and that RRs, DRRs, OMs and ARRs in that office who served from 1996-2005 have failed to implement UNDP's article 8 of its Financial Rules and Regulations who calls for any counterfiet to be "returned" to either the country of the currency or UNDP HQ;


• UNDP was aware of irregular use of CASH, and have knowingly allowed its operations to feed CASH to "local counterparts" and "staffers" in hardcurrency, against its own Financial Rules and Programmes Rules and Regulations;


• UNDP was aware of it least 4 instances of suspiscious DPRK companies linked to its military and yet allowed that transactions through these companies go thru;


• UNDP was aware and knowingly allowed that North Korean Authorities to use its EURO accounts and USD accounts to transfer CASH outside of North Korea, on behalf of its authorities for un-authorized transactions not related to its programme and operations;


• UNDP was aware and knowingly broke its Human Resources rules in hiring local staffers, despite the non-existance of any contract with any staff;


• UNDP was made aware of its wrong doings and attempts to implement changes were initiated as early as December 2005 from UN's Operations Managemet Team inside North Korea. But their attempt resulted in all those who dared to raise their voices and attempt changes be expulsed from DPRK as persona-non-grata and UNDP dealt in private and secret deals with North Korean authorities to ensure that whenever the authorities were unsatisfied of any of the international staff, UNDP would remove those without "noise";

EIIRP also acknowledged "consistent difficulties" in obtaining UNDP's files and other access to HQs machinery to enable proper investigation.

Meanwhile, last nite at 9:00 pm Office of the Secretary General of United Nations was already working hard to ensure that this version of "devastating" report be water down and at least try to acommodate "both parties", and allow that this "issue is closed and we move on...".

Phones were ringing unrestedly and European Capitals expressed deep concern that UNDP might attempt to change the findings of the report and cover up truth. From Brussels to Rome, from Bonn to Stockholmes, from Washington to Tokyo, important representatives expressed concern over "why the report has been delivered from EIIRP to UNDP + UN/SG first and not to the UN Member States as promissed".

Meanwhile from Ottawa, the homeland of Robert Benson - tough words arrives at 38th floor - that UN SG should allow its Ethics Officer and Chair of Ethics Committee of Inter-Agency Group to have the last say on the report, otherwise credibility of UN and its system of justice is at stake.

Voices also were raised from Staff Union and Staff Federation, who claimed that report was being kept secret from them.

As nite fall at turtle bay, lights at 38 floor of Main Secretariat Building and 21st Floor in DC1, continued to lid - showing frenetic movement of staffers and a sense of last minute desperation to at least prevent the worst. While Stephane Dujarric is drafting Dervis's scenario for an early Monday Press Briefing, despite continuous calls from Member States to allow time for them to read and digest EIIRP Report.

UNDP Watch is watching and thanks to corageous staffers inside UNDP and UN's Ban Office has obtained all related documents, commincations and will be publishing those as story unfolds.

UNDP admits wrong doing in Procurements - while keeping secret its internal Audit from PSO staff

Major victory achieved thanks to UNDP Watch !!!!!!

A strong and long campaign in uncovering the internal corruption at UNDP's Procurement Department, has resulted today in major VICTORY.

In a letter to the staff of Procurement Services (PSO) its Director Mr. Provenzano acknowledged the past wrong doings while laying out the strategy for immediate future.

Knowing very well that his email would be brought to the attention of UNDP Watch, Provenzano carefully crafted it to provide a clear answer to all "clues" about how ACP operated in the past, while trying to pull himself "out" and playing safe for both sides (Dervis and "Watchers").

Provenzano admits (in a italian lawyer style) that UNDP in fact had no:

(a) policy at all in dealing with suspended vendors and therefore need to promulgate one,
(b) that in fact it was wrong to award CORIMEC,
(c) he makes his "UNDP Watch" sugestion to create a UNDP Procurement expert Board with specialist from each Regional Bureau (Thanks Jim);
(d) UNDP Lacks of guides and rules on Procurement Ethics;
(e) UNDP lacks of an ISO certification (Krishan has never been certified);
(f) he admits that UNDP lacks of basic reporting and assessment tools for Vendors and Procurements, casting a major doubt on past 3.9 Billion USD procured in past 28 months from Akiko Yuge and Krishan Batra.

While UNDP Watch and all staff thinks that UNDP should take immediate administrative punitive actions against the following staffers:

- Jan Mattsson
- Akiko Yuge
- Krishan Batra
- James Provenzano

These individuals have:

- have diverted UNDP funds for their own interests;
- have awarded contracts to third parties without any process for personal gain;
- have awarded contracts to individuals in amounts above $100K, resulting in at least 275 Million USD of dubbious contracts, and inexistent individuals;
- have failed to institutionalized a transparent and accountable procurement process, resulting in 1,7 Billion USD lost for the organization;

Here is the letter of James Provenzano:

An advise for your Jim, you can't have it both ways.

UNDP Watch is Watching !!!!!

Herfkens minder erg dan criminele ambtenaar

Tussen het recht en de financiën van de overheid ofwel de belastingbetaler bestaat een moeilijk te doorgronden relatie. Terwijl er veel gedoe is om Eveline Herfkens te bewegen, ja zelfs met juridische maatregelen te dwingen, de in strijd met VN-regels door de staat aan haar toegekende huurvergoeding van 280 duizend US-dollars terug te laten betalen, betaalt diezelfde staat moeiteloos de parkeerboetes en geldboetes van in diensttijd gepleegde snelheidsovertredingen van haar ambtenaren. Dus Herfkens moet financieel bloeden voor een te goeder trouw begane overtreding, terwijl een horde ambtenaren financieel geen cent hoeft te betalen voor gewoon opzettelijk begane strafbare feiten.

De kosten van al die geldboetes van ambtenaren behelzen een veelvoud van het huursubsidiebedrag van Herfkens en kost de belastingbetaler dus veel meer. Wonderwel windt niemand zich hierover op. Hier is niet alleen sprake van selectieve rechtshandhaving, maar ook nog van ambtelijke bevordering van zogeheten kleine criminaliteit, waarop de gewone burger keihard wordt afgerekend. Het is uit oogpunt van integere strafrechtspolitiek onaanvaardbaar dat de staat (lees: belastingbetaler) de geldboetes voldoet van door ambtenaren gepleegde strafbare feiten. Daarmee wordt zowel de generale als de speciale preventie, twee belangrijke doelen in het strafrecht, illusoir gemaakt. Het meest stuitend is echter, dat onschuldige burgers financieel opdraaien voor schuldige medeburgers. Al met al een situatie die reeds op grond hiervan de moraliteit van het gejaag op de centen van Herfkens ernstig vervlakt.

Daar komt nog bij dat bij de toekenning van de huurvergoeding aan Eveline Herfkens sprake is van een grote dosis van medeschuld van de staat. Dat zal zeer waarschijnlijk een juridische veroordeling van Herfkens in de weg staan, maar het maakt het verschil tussen rechtshandhaving ten aanzien van Herfkens en de overige ambtenaren wel extra stuitend en willekeurig.

UNDP PSO hides 87 contracts with terrorist organizations

UNDP's PSO is trying to make disappear from all systems 87 contracts with terrorist linked / affiliated companies.

The list contains :

- 8 UN-Blacklisted Terror List companies;
- 11 UN-Blacklisted Terror List individuals as owners of companies ;
- 35 US Treasury blacklisted companies and banks;
- 20 US Treasury blacklisted individuals as owners of companies;
- 13 US Treasury blacklisted individuals as owners or shareholders of banks doing business with UNDP;

UNDP OIST is cooperating in daily basis with Darshak Shah and julie Anne Mejia to ensure that the transactions that took place in with the above companies and/or banks and/or individuals are completely cleaned from UNDP's ATLAS and all related documentations.

UNDP is keeping the number of those involved in the process extremely low and those involved are controlled directly from OIST and their emails, hardware including their bags are all searched on the way in and out. No USB keys or phones with blutooth are allowed to enter the room were transaction is taking place. Meanwhile all those involved are under "P" long-term contracts.

Herfkens-probleem bij Defensie

Den Haag/New York, 30 mei. Ook het ministerie van Defensie verstrekt in strijd met de regels van de Verenigde Naties financiële vergoedingen aan bij de VN gedetacheerde medewerkers.

Het gaat om twee kolonels. Zij krijgen per maand enkele honderden euro’s van het ministerie van Defensie als aanvulling op hun salaris van de VN. Volgens een woordvoerder is deze suppletie bedoeld om de medewerkers hetzelfde inkomen te garanderen als zij in Nederland ontvingen.

Na de ophef die is ontstaan rondom Eveline Herfkens, voert het ministerie van Defensie gesprekken met de kolonels over een terugbetalingsregeling. De gesprekken zijn nog gaande. Herfkens werkt voor de VN-ontwikkelingsorganisatie UNDP. Zij bleek een huurvergoeding van het ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken te ontvangen. De reglementen van de VN verbieden betalingen door derden.

Defensie spreekt van een groot probleem. Als loonsuppleties niet meer mogen om het salaris bij een VN-detachering op peil te houden, zal niemand zich meer voor dergelijke functies melden omdat dat zou betekenen dat hoge militairen die bij de Verenigde Naties worden gedetacheerd er in inkomen op achteruitgaan.

In het geval van Eveline Herfkens ging het om een door het ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken verstrekte vergoeding van 6.000 dollar per maand voor haar flat in New York. Soortgelijke gevallen kent het departement niet, meldde minister Verhagen van Buitenlandse Zaken de Tweede Kamer eerder. Wel ontvangt de vorig jaar naar de VN vertrokken Nederlandse diplomaat Robert Serry nog een tijdelijke huurvergoeding voor de woning die hij in Dublin heeft achtergelaten en waar een deel van zijn familie nog tot deze zomer woont in verband met een schoolgaand kind. Strikt genomen is deze regeling ook in strijd met de VN-regels. Het ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken voert hierover nog gesprekken.

'Kwestie Herfkens iets tussen haar en Nederland'

'Kwestie Herfkens iets tussen haar en Nederland'

NEW YORK - De kwestie Herfkens is iets wat zij onderling, met de Nederlandse regering moet regelen. Dat stelde de UNDP donderdag in een reactie op het conflict omtrent de onrechtmatig ontvangen huursubsidie van de voormalige Nederlandse bewindsvrouw gedurende haar werk voor de ontwikkelingstak van de Verenigde Naties. Het is niet waarschijnlijk dat de UNDP stappen gaat ondernemen tegen de Nederlandse Staat.

De betreffende fondsen kwamen van de Nederlandse regering en niet van de Verenigde Naties”, zei UNDP-woordvoerster Christina LoNigro. „Deze specifieke kwestie moet dan ook door de betreffende partijen worden opgelost.” LoNigro doelt daarmee op de Nederlandse regering en de voormalige PvdA-minister Eveline Herfkens, en niet op UNDP.

Eerder deze week publiceerde UNDP de bevindingen van een intern onderzoek waarin het stelt dat de voormalige bewindsvrouw niet bewust de regels van de VN overtrad. Het rapport legt verantwoordelijkheid bij UNDP zelf, die Herfkens beter op de hoogte had moeten stellen van de regels bij haar aanstelling als uitvoerend directeur van de VN Millennium Campagne. Herfkens ontving gedurende haar functie in New York een huursubsidie van de Nederlandse regering iets wat tegen de regels van de VN ingaat.

Ook stelt UNDP de Nederlandse regering verantwoordelijk. „Het onderzoek wees uit dat de Nederlandse regering in een positie was om te weten dat deze toelages niet in overeenstemming waren met de VN-stafregulaties en regels”, aldus UNDP in een verklaring over dat rapport.

Minister Maxime Verhagen (Buitenlandse Zaken) kondigde deze week aan dat hij Herfkens nog een keer wil vragen de onterecht ontvangen subsidie terug te betalen. Doet ze dat wederom niet, dan stapt hij naar de rechter. Herfkens gaf in een interview in de Volkskrant te kennen dat zij zal betalen als de rechter haar veroordeelt.

De kwestie is in politiek Den Haag daarmee echter nog niet afgelopen. De Tweede Kamer wil nog voor de zomer een debat waarin Verhagen moet toelichten wat hij precies gaat doen. Bovendien wil de Kamer ook weten wat Verhagen doet met de andere Nederlanders die tegen de VN-regels geld hebben ontvangen.

Defensie betaalde kolonels bij VN illegaal

(Novum) - Het ministerie van Defensie heeft een salarisaanvulling voor twee Nederlandse kolonels werkzaam bij de Verenigde Naties stopgezet. Aanleiding is de affaire-Herfkens, waaruit naar voren kwam dat VN-medewerkers niet door derde partijen betaald mogen worden. Dat meldt een woordvoerder van Defensie vrijdag.

De kolonels zijn tijdelijk uit dienst bij Defensie en werken op het VN-hoofdkantoor in New York, als stafmedewerkers van secretaris-generaal Ban Ki-moon. Tot voor kort ontvingen ze van Defensie maandelijks elk enkele honderden euro's aanvullend op hun VN-salaris. Defensie gaf dat extraatje omdat de salarissen bij andere internationale organisaties als de NAVO hoger liggen. "We wilden dat gelijktrekken."

Defensie erkent de regels van de VN te hebben overtreden. Het ministerie heeft de vergoedingen ingetrokken, maar blijft ermee in zijn maag zitten. Defensie vreest dat Nederlanders wellicht in de toekomst niet meer voor een detachering bij de VN zullen kiezen als ze geen aanvulling krijgen op hun salaris. "Dan moet iemands keuze om bij de VN te gaan werken volledig gedragen worden door iemands motivatie. Mensen willen ook hun boterham kunnen betalen."

De twee kolonels hebben aangegeven ondanks hun verminderde inkomsten in New York te blijven. Wel voert Defensie nog gesprekken met beiden om eventueel op een andere manier compensatie te kunnen bieden. Of en hoe dit vorm gaat krijgen, kan de woordvoerder niet zeggen. Een optie is dat de twee worden gecompenseerd bij terugkomst, als ze weer in dienst van Defensie zijn, maar de woordvoerder weet niet of dit wettelijk mogelijk is.

Defensie sluit ook niet uit dat er voldoende officieren zullen zijn die genoegen nemen met een minder salaris en toch bij de VN gaan werken. De woordvoerder noemt het van belang dat Nederlanders werkzaam zijn bij de VN. Hij wijst op de verantwoordelijkheid als lidstaat en op de mogelijkheid invloed uit te oefenen.

Hoewel Defensie dezelfde regels heeft overtreden als Buitenlandse Zaken in de zaak-Herfkens, ziet Defensie ook grote verschillen. Zo zijn de bedragen die de kolonels ontvingen 'van een andere orde' dan de gage van Herfkens. Ook ging het bij de kolonels niet om huurtoeslag maar om een aanvulling op het inkomen.

Herfkens ontving van het ministerie van Buitenlandse Zaken 280 duizend dollar huursubsidie. Uit onderzoek van de VN-ontwikkelingsorganisatie UNDP, waar Herfkens werkzaam was, bleek deze week dat Herfkens de regels had ontvangen en ondertekend. Buitenlandse Zaken krijgt in het rapport kritiek omdat het de huursubsidie verstrekte. Minister van Buitenlandse Zaken Maxime Verhagen (CDA) liet dinsdag weten het geld alsnog te willen terugvorderen, eventueel via een rechtsgang. Herfkens heeft te kennen gegeven het geld niet terug te betalen.

Eveline Herfkens Commits the Perfect Crime....

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, May 28 -- As the Dutch government demands repayment from Eveline Herfkens, who took $280,000 from the government while ostensibly working only as UN Millennium Campaign coordinator, Ms. Herfkens is staking out a position as the committer of the perfect crime.

To the Dutch she has said that she broke only UN rules, not Dutch rules, and so she won't pay back a penny. "This is a case between me and the UN," Herfkens has said.

So Inner City Press asked UN Deputy Spokesperson Marie Okabe on Wednesday at noon, what's the UN position if somebody works for the UN and takes money from a Government?

Ms. Okabe answered, "this is a United Nations Development Program matter and UNDP, as you know, Stephane Dujarric, is willing to take any questions on this matter."

Inner City Press followed up, "The only reason I'm asking you is because her quote was 'it's a matter between me and the UN.' She didn’t say UNDP; she said 'me and the UN.'" Video here.

Ms. Okabe repeated, "I'm referring your questions to UNDP."

But seven hours later, UNDP's answer was in fact a non-answer:

"The statement posted earlier this week is clear on what the investigation found. I don't want to get into a he/said she/said with Ms. Herfkins. The funds in questions came from the Dutch government and not the United Nations. Those specific issues need to be worked out by those parties."

So Herfkens tells the Dutch she will not return the improperly received money, because "it is between me and the UN." But then the UN says it is between Herfkens and the Dutch. As it stands, it is the perfect crime. People have gone to jail for less...

UNDP in Somalia: Allegations of a Cash-for-Al Qaeda Program

UNDP in Somalia: Allegations of a Cash-for-Al Qaeda Program

Would you believe, here comes yet another scandal surrounding the UN Development Program, or UNDP, home to the North Korea Cash-for-Kim scandal, and flagship agency of the UN. In that case, the UNDP ejected the whistleblower, Artjon Shkurtaj, who called attention to the problems that led to the shutdown in March, 2007 of the UNDP office in North Korea. The UNDP then rejected the recommendation of the UN Ethics office that he be given whistleblower protection.

The Cash-for-Kim saga entailed a great many sub-scandals, including counterfeit U.S. cash stored in the safe of the UNDP office in Pyongyang, UNDP transfers of money on behalf of other UN agencies to accounts linked to North Korea’s weapons proliferation network, and North Korea laundering funds through UNDP-related accounts. But let us fast-forward to the matter at hand –

– Where the setting is the UNDP in Somalia. Now, there are reports of another whistleblower, Ismail Ahmed, a British national, kicked out by the UNDP. Ahmed claims he was trying to sound alarms about UNDP support for a Somali money transfer company with what Reuters, in a dispatch about his claims, calls “suspected links to Islamic militants.” And what militants would those be? Let us browse on to the details on this case provided by the Government Accountability Project, or GAP, which in a dossier on its web site says that Ahmed’s allegations include information about UNDP support from 2003-2005 for a Somali remittance company, Dalsan, which collapsed in 2006, with $30 million disappearing in the process. The problems with Dalsan went beyond alleged fraud. GAP also notes that Dalsan was “co-founded by a former spokesman of Al-Ittihad al-Islamiya (AIAI), an organization placed on a list of terrorist organizations by the U.S. in 2001 and by the UN Sanctions Committee.” That would be the UN list of “Entities and other groups and undertakings associated with Al-Qaida.” GAP further notes that Dalsan’s chairman when it collapsed in 2006 was Abdilkadir Hashi Farah “Ayro,” who is “the younger brother of Aden Hashi ‘Ayro’ ” – who was a top al-Qaeda commander in Somalia, reportedly killed two weeks ago by an American missile strike.

The GAP dossier further alleges that the UNDP helped Dalsan obtain the release of frozen funds, get visas and travel documents for senior company officials, and secure the appointment of a Dalsan company officer as chairman of the Somali Financial Services Association (Europe), handling the rule-making for the Somali remittance industry. According to the GAP, all that fed into the set-up in which “the UNDP Somalia Office provided Dalsan critical support that may have helped the company to flout international regulations and commit a major fraud in which hundreds of Somali migrants and remittance recipients lost an estimated $30 million.”
What do the folks at the UNDP headquarters in NY have to say about this? According to Reuters, the UNDP is promising to look into this “completely” and “get to the bottom of this as thoroughly as possible.” To that end, reports Reuters, a UNDP spokesman says an investigation team will ”fly in mid-June to Nairobi, where the UNDP’s Somalia programme is based.” Hmmm. Mid-June. For the UNDP this is so urgent that it will take a month before a team can even head for Nairobi. Maybe they have to get in line behind the UNDP’s much-delayed investigation into its own handling of Cash-for-Kim and the attendant whistleblower issues. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon promised in January, 2007 that the UN would get to the bottom of that one right away, and 16 months later, we’re still waiting. Come to think of it, when Cash-for-Kim broke, Ban-Ki-Moon initially promised a world-wide audit of all UN systems — an idea he then scrapped the following week. Too bad. Ismail Ahmed’s allegations about UNDP support for a company linked to Al Qaeda might have surfaced sooner.

As it is, the questions proliferating around the UNDP, and what Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is calling its “immutable corruption,” become ever more urgent and disturbing. As the UN’s flagship agency, the UNDP now has an annual budget of $5 billion and disburses another $4 billion per year worldwide on behalf of other UN agencies and donor programs. In countries such as North Korea, Somalia, and beyond, what exactly has the UNDP been developing?

Who is the shadow man .....inside PSO ?

.....following the search for the shadow man inside PSO, the investigation is now down to 4 names.

Yes....4 names.....who those might be .....Will see....

But Kemal dervis and ad melkert seem really in hurry to find out and destroy this leak inside the brain room of UNDP. Even Mark Malloch Brown from London was "deeply concerned" about the procurement report being leaked outside.

Poor MMB....who knows why he is concerned.

Watch this site...we will reveal by end of today the identity of the "mole"!!!!!

Finding who is the mole...

Immediately after the publication in FOX NEWS of the Audit on UNDP Procurement, a major campaign was underway to find out who leaked the document.

By mid afternoon, OIST and the two SSAs hired to spy on staff, have narrowed their search and found out that the copy of the report with "blacked-out" findings was only distributed to very few managers. List is about 9 individuals who had that type of "restricted" report.

This morning the gestapo machinery will focus on calling upon all the 9 and make them spill out (a) who leaked it (b) to whom they leaked it (c) what more they leaked so far.

The list was delivered last nite to 21st floor, with at least three names underlined.

As Ad Melkert said: "we will find who the US mole is inside UNDP".

UNDP Watch will follow this morning and continue to report.

UNDP kept PSO audit findings secreet from its own staff !!

Letter to UNDP Watch:

I am a staff of Procurement Support Office in UNDP. I was personally very disturbed when I read yesterday in FoxNews the revelation that an Audit Report was done to our operations, and that indeed the score of our work was UNSATISFACTORY.

While I personally do not share many of UNDP Watch's comments and maybe the strategy to fight the system from inside by revealing to the world internal problems, I am deeply concerned with deception and lies that our managers Jim Provenzano and Krishan Batra were telling us at PSO about the "real" findings of this audit.

I can't understand how managers can keep these terrible findings secreet for so long? Why hide from us the reality, while "stressing on daily basis that instead UNDP Watch is not telling the truth"....

Moreover, I was dismayed when I saw last nite on FOXNEWS TV the interview and comments of the UNDP's Spokesperson, Mr. Dujarric, who claimed that "UNDP is currently cleaning up and correcting audit findings"...

Who is cleaning up ? One thing is for sure not us at PSO. None of us in PSO is involved in Vendor Cleaning or Correction of any form or shape.

First is illegal to "clean" up a vendor, without a proper process of delisting. Is also illegal and with direct implication to anyones immage to be delisted from the UN/UNDP database without a reason for doing that.

Second most of the 500 thousand Vendors inside UNDP, are not our vendors, but rather vendors whom are added to our Finance System (ATLAS) through projects that we manage on behalf of other UN Agencies, who entrust us with their CO payments and or projects. How can we clean up their vendors - without a process of consultation and ethical disclosure?

Third who is this entity or individual with supernatural powers inside UNDP that can assess and confidently decide who is deleted and who "stays" inside our Vendor List?

We never had a process in place to decide how a vendor become vendor in first place. We still dont have a process of accountability and monitoring of vendor performance.

I am also disturbed with the impunity and chronism iside out organization. Whenever smth this big is revealed UNDP management rushes in to ensure that "proper correction actions are being taken".

But sorry who is accountable for allowing 6 billion USD to be lost in un-approved project activities ? Who is accountable for millions in waivers ? Who approves vendors inside ATLAS ? Believe me very few managers have those rights. And we all know who they are.

Today I can share with you that many staffers inside PSO have lost their faith and trust entirely on our managers. Personally they can say anything from today on, I will never believe them.

Regards

PM

UNDP Procurement: A Shambles

Wednesday, May 28, 2008
By George Russell



The multibillion-dollar procurement business of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the U.N.’s flagship anti-poverty agency, is a gigantic shambles, according to UNDP’s own investigators.

Moreover, UNDP’s management has privately acknowledged that fact and is scrambling to fix the mess — even as it loudly denied concerns of a procurement scandal that have been raised by FOX News, among others.

In a confidential report obtained by FOX News, UNDP’s auditors have described the UNDP procurement organization that is spending well over $2 billion annually as:

— overwhelmed by its caseload at headquarters and in the field, while procurement ballooned from $800 million in 2003 to $2.5 billion in 2006 and $2.2 billion last year;

— often failing to provide plans to support its buying activities, which the report says causes many purchases of goods and services to be carried out on an "ad hoc basis" (in fact, more than $595 million worth of non-existent purchases were recorded, although the audit notes that they were not paid for);

— wallowing in shoddy paperwork and faulty bidding processes, which contributed to a "high number of waivers of the competitive process and to quality problems in the procurement process in general";

— lacking the expertise to evaluate hundreds of millions of dollars worth of its most expensive and important purchases in civic construction and high-tech communications;

— drastically unqualified: Fully half of the organization’s procurement staff around the world were not certified for the basic requirements of their jobs, while the auditors also found the six-hour course for those who were certified to be "inadequate." Initially, the auditors noted, "there are entire offices without a single certified buyer";

— suffering from an "apparent" conflict of interest at the top, where the people charged with vetting the procurement process for flaws are also members of the procurement office staff.

The same potentials for conflict of interest apparently dog local staffers, who, the report says, had not received official guidelines for disclosing their finances and interests, even though a policy demanding those declarations had been issued a year earlier.

Even more ominously, the same auditors point out that UNDP:

— has no sure way of knowing whether it is doing business with organizations that the U.N. itself has condemned for terrorist ties and says UNDP country offices find the current manual system of cross-checking with U.N. terrorist sanctions lists to be "cumbersome and inefficient";

— has no formal policy for suspending or removing vendors for poor performance or corruption;

— and doesn’t ask new vendors for the identity of their owners or other corporate ties. This raises the possibility that vendors caught out for corruption or poor performance could simply switch names and reapply for approved status.

The auditors also declare that at the time of their report, a staggering 260,000 vendors registered with UNDP were considered "inactive," meaning that the names existed, but the vendors were not seeking UNDP business — at least under those names.

Nor does UNDP policy, the auditors say, require detailed background checks on vendors unless "the contract amount is expected to exceed $1 million."

All of those observations, and many more almost as damning, are contained in a confidential draft audit report prepared by UNDP’s own Office of Audit and Investigations, or OAI, and embellished with comments by UNDP’s top management as of April 18. A redacted version of the draft report was obtained by FOX News.

Click here to see the draft audit.

According to its authors, the report contains some 21 "high priority" recommendations, where action is "imperative" and "failure to take action could result in major consequences and issues." All of these and other, less "imperative" recommendations were blacked out in the copy obtained by FOX News.

In several cases, where disagreement existed, it mainly appeared that top managers did not think UNDP could afford the changes or cited bureaucratic obstacles to full compliance.

The gaping holes and lack of competencies revealed by the report in the safeguards surrounding UNDP procurement have implications not only for the flagship anti-poverty agency but conceivably for many other U.N. agencies.

UNDP does business in 160 countries, where it designs all kinds of development programs in close collaboration with local governments, including a variety of radical dictatorships and many nations with abysmal corruption records.

UNDP has touted itself as a safeguard for the honesty and transparency of procurement exercises carried out on behalf of those governments — a view of UNDP probity and efficiency that the audit report essentially explodes.

Moreover, UNDP often conducts its procurement exercises to further the programs of other U.N. agencies among its far-flung constituencies, and the UNDP resident representative in each country is empowered as the U.N. secretary-general’s envoy.

UNDP is also taking the lead in an eight-country U.N. experiment known as "One U.N.," which will make the anti-poverty agency even more a conduit of all U.N. business in each nation, especially as "One U.N." rolls out further in the years ahead.

Among other things, the audit report gives grounds for questioning the wisdom of that process as it has been practiced.

The report includes a mini-digest of procurement cases with suspicious, unsatisfactory or unjustified results ranging from Ukraine ("the procurement process was unfair and non-transparent") to Colombia ("the soundness and effectiveness of the procurement process were questionable") to Somalia ("donor had requested a specific international company to be considered even though the solicitation process was local").

The importance of UNDP in the U.N. scheme of things and the controversy that has surrounded some of its recent actions are likely reasons for the apparent management scramble to meet its auditors’ concerns, especially as a key meeting of UNDP’s 36-nation supervisory executive board is scheduled to take place mid-June in Geneva.

On some issues examined in the report — notably, on the need to run background checks on vendors — management declares it will have a new system in place in June. Terrorist cross-checks, however, will take at least until July. So will the need to demonstrate planning along with "demonstrated capacity and performance," especially at the level of individual countries.

(Among other things, the audit report notes that some countries "have a rejection of 50 percent or more" on their first attempts at procurement submissions, while the overall rejection rates for Africa as a whole are "more than 40 percent.")

In April, UNDP took strong exception to a FOX News report that cited the development organization's own internal documents to show that over the past three years, UNDP had waived competitive bidding procedures for goods and services worth $879 million, roughly 58 percent of the total disbursed by UNDP headquarters during that time.

Some of the largest volumes of waivers went to countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, where official corruption has reached shocking levels.

In its response to the FOX report, UNDP claimed that procurement during the three-year period was $6.96 billion and claimed that waivers of competition amounted to only 7 percent of the total. That percentage, however, amounted to a redefinition of the term "waiver of competitive bidding" as used on the UNDP documents obtained by FOX.

The same month, after FOX questioned the existence of a $2.3 million UNDP procurement of U.S.-made airport scanners on behalf of the radical Chavez government in Venezuela, UNDP posted a purchase order whose date and number did not match earlier documents that the agency had said were used to ship the equipment — three weeks before the later documents attested that the deal had been done.

International anti-corruption watchdogs rank Venezuela as being on the same level as the Democratic Republic of Congo.

UNDP practices in its client countries have been controversial since January 2007, when then-U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Mark Wallace raised questions about the agency’s use of cash payments to North Koreans who were employees of the Kim Jong-Il regime and who also occupied sensitive UNDP local posts. Subsequent investigation revealed that the Kim regime had also used UNDP bank accounts to funnel money to its nuclear weapons program.

UNDP subsequently fired a member of its staff who blew the whistle on the North Korean practices and declared it was not bound by U.N. rules when the U.N.'s newly appointed ethics officer declared he had found "prima facie evidence" of retaliation against the whistleblower. An ostensibly independent report on the whistleblower’s status, written by three panelists chosen by UNDP, is expected shortly.

How successful UNDP will be at fixing the mess described in the April draft audit report remains to be seen.

Among other things, top management agreed with the auditors that greater regional supervision of UNDP country procurement decisions is required. (The auditors suggested that for waivers of competition where "exigency for the requirement" is cited as justification, "the Regional Bureau concerned should be requested to confirm that there is indeed a ‘genuine exigency.’")

But management also said that the changes in supervision would not be implemented before the end of this year.

George Russell is executive editor of FOX News.

BREAKING NEWS: Dutch Foreign Minister to demand Herfkens repay rebates

Published: Tuesday 27 May 2008 21:07 UTC Last updated: Tuesday 27 May 2008 21:07 UTC

Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen says he will try to make former minister for development cooperation Eveline Herfkens repay the 280,000 euros she received from the Dutch government.

The money was for the cost of her New York apartment and for her removal expenses when she moved to Maryland.In 2002 Ms Herfkens moved to New York when she received a senior position at the United Nations Development Programme. The Dutch government paid her housing costs for a number of years, which violated UN rules. However, a UN report has absolved Ms Herfkens of willful wrongdoing. It says she was never informed she was breaking the rules by either the Dutch government or the UN.

However, Minister Verhagen says that when she was hired she signed a contract which contained all rules and regulations. He says this makes her responsible and hence she should repay her housing rebates. Ms Verhagen says the rebates may have been in violation of UN rules, but they were in accordance with Dutch law. She says: "Many people received rebates; I was not the only one."

MPs from across the political spectrum say the former Dutch UN diplomat Eveline Herfkens should repay at least part of the $280,000 she was wrongly given to pay for her New York flat.
Herfkens, a former Labour party aid minister worked as a special advisor to secretary general Kofi Annan on poverty issues between 2002 and 2006.

The MPs insistence that the money be returned comes as a UN report on the affair appears to hold the Dutch government and the UN itself partly responsible.

The report, different versions of which are carried by both the NRC and the Volkskrant newspaper, says that Herfkens ‘ appears to have unknowingly breached the staff regulations, in good faith and without mal-intent’.

Herfkens was given and signed for a copy of the staff regulations during her induction period. She told the NRC earlier this year she was too busy to read them.
Foreign minister Maxime Verhagen said earlier that he would try to recoup the money if legally possible and if it was shown that Herfkens knew she was breaking UN rules.

For the Volkskrant's copy of the UN letter, click here
For yesterday's news story, click here

Dutch parliament wants money back

The lower house of the Dutch parliment wants the government to reclaim money wrongfully paid to a former Labour Party minister employed since 2002 by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).

On Monday, Eveline Herfkens was acquitted of charges that she abused her position at the UNDP for personal gain. Ms Herfkens had been accused of violating the UN's internal code of conduct by accepting 280,000 euros from the Dutch government to pay for her New York apartment and her removal costs when she moved to Maryland.

In a letter to Dutch Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen, Kemal Dervis - UNDP director - revealed that Ms Herfkens had signed a document stating that she had received a copy of the UN rules. These rules state that UN employees are not allowed to receive compensation from their own governments.

Nevertheless, he also said Ms Herfkens was never specifically informed that she was breaking the rules. He says the Dutch government itself should have known about the regulations. The UNDP chief also accepted some of the blame, admitting that Ms Herfkens' introduction to the UN had been inadequate.

Mistakes

On Monday, Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen told parliament that he hadn't read the letter, but accepted that his department had made mistakes. "The ministry should not have paid compensation to Ms Herfkens and she should not have accepted it," he said.

His department will investigate whether it is legally possible to retrieve the money. Last month the minister told the house that Ms Herfkens had twice refused to pay back the amount, but said he would demand she return it if it was discovered that she had knowingly broken the rules.

The former development cooperation minister believes she has done nothing wrong, because the Dutch government offered her the compensation when she was given the UNDP job. She says paying the money back would be an admission of guilt.

Dutch government concedes housing subsidy for UN diplomat broke rules

AMSTERDAM, Netherlands (AP) - The Dutch government broke U.N. rules by paying a US$7,000 (Euro 4,400) monthly housing subsidy to a top diplomat at the UN Development Program, the foreign minister said Tuesday.

Maxime Verhagen said an investigation by the UNDP found that the money was improperly given and received because U.N. employees cannot accept financial
gifts from governments.

Eveline Herfkens got the subsidy from November 2002 to January 2006 while she was serving as the executive coordinator of the UNDP's Millennium Campaign to eliminate poverty and assist developing nations. Her annual salary was US$225,000 (Euro140,000).

Verhagen said he had received a report from UNDP Director Kemal Dervis saying that Herfkens broke the rules but there was no evidence «she didn't act in good faith.
«In addition, the report confirms that mistakes were also made by the Netherlands and by the UNDP,» he wrote in a letter to parliament.

He said his ministry would now try to get some or all of the money back, but prospects are uncertain. Herfkens has previously rejected calls by legislators to repay the subsidy, totaling about US$280,000 (Euro 180,000).

The UNDP report said the prohibition against receiving gifts was part of the contract Herfkens signed when she was appointed, Verhagen said. «That she apparently didn't read the rules she received and therefore presumably violated them unknowingly is something that she's still accountable for,» he said. «That the ministry made mistakes as well doesn't detract from that.

Herfkens said in a newspaper interview in January she had asked for the subsidy after learning it was available to high-ranking diplomats. Without it, she would have had to rent a «claustrophobic» apartment, she said. «I would have been crazy not to take it _ otherwise I would have had a wall for a view,» she said.

A multi-millionaire in a $59.99 suit !!

Yes this is the guy - his name is Krishan Batra. The most "successful" Chief of ACP in the history of United Nations Development Programme.

During his tenure the ratio of approved with-no-minutes of ACP Waivers, Direct Procurement and fake vendors went up by a staggering 231%.

Private minutes of ACP meetings show that Krishan Batra was approving and uploading on his own at the rate of 3-to-1 cases. Cases that never passed and were never reviewed by ACP members, were sent to CPO for direct procurement, while no one were able nor dared to ask questions about how could all those billions make it without technical nor simple administrative review.

A man that underneath his cheap green suit, his reckless and quasi "homeless" outlook, who can pass anytime for a cleaner or the most random photocopy man, is none of the above.

He is the most sophisticated money making machine the corrupt history of our almost fifty-year single malt bureaucracy has ever seen. Yes dear colleagues he is the Head Cleaner !!

Today UNDP cannot even tell how much was/is the damage created by this man, on behalf of these CPOs during the recent years:

• Jan Mattsson;
• Bruce Jenks;
• Akiko Yuge;
• James Provenzano;

All the above, themselves do not know how many times they signed paperwork, served to them from this "perfect servant" and first class ass-leaking. With his fake smile, Krishan was able to pass millions upon millions of dollars, in :

• un-approved project expenditures;
• un-approved activities;
• un-foreseen and un-signed MoUs;
• non-existing vendors;
• contracts with no specifications nor technical details;
• contracts with no paperwork - who were rushed in for sake of the non-existing poor;

And many more .......

Eventhough all the above is totally proven and known to the Regime of Kemal Dervis and Ad Melkert, they have chosen the path of turning an blind eye on Krishan.

But why ? Does Krishan holds any secrets on Kemal Dervis and Ad Melkert? Have they made any deals? How many approvals Krishan processed on their behalf ? How many millions he produced and shared or provided the cut for Kemal Dervis and Melkert ?

Well dear colleagues, you might be saying all the above is untrue and is the making of group of crazy UNDP Watchers.......you maybe right......or wrong......

Soon we will all see !!!

GAP: -UN Secretary-General Proposes More Coordinated Investigations and Ethics Offices

In a statement circulated internally, Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has voiced his support for a common “investigative capacity” across the UN system. At a meeting on April 28, 2008, the Secretary-General told the Executive Heads of the UN Funds and Programs:

“[W]e lack a common investigative capacity in the UN to address wrong-doing, misconduct and even fraud and corruption. Member States are requesting the Secretary-General to prepare a comprehensive report on investigations which should be common between the Secretariat and Funds and Programmes… I believe the UN System as a whole needs a consistent set of policies on transparency.”

Click here to read the entire "talking points" statement from Ban Ki-moon

By creating a single, accountable and impartial investigative body to address wrongdoing, the UN could maximize efficiency, encourage integrity and promote the notion of “One UN”. GAP, which represents three whistleblowers in the United Nations system, believes the Secretary General and the Executive Heads should act quickly to realize this important reform and address increasing dissatisfaction with internal controls.

The UN’s anti-corruption unit – the investigations division of the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) – has recently come under heavy fire for its record of ineffectiveness and retaliatory investigative practices. But such problems are not confined to OIOS. GAP whistleblowers report similar experiences with the investigative bodies throughout the UN system, including the intimidation of witnesses, conflicts of interest and failure to investigate retaliation. In perhaps the most widely publicized whistleblower case, a UNDP staff member who disclosed fraudulent practices in the office in Pyongyang has been denied due process. He has been subjected to protracted punitive treatment while an ad hoc investigation, now in its eighth month, continues. Despite an initial finding that the whistleblower had suffered retaliation and that his disclosures were substantive, he remains without due process remedies, employment or interim relief, while other staff members from the now-closed North Korea office have been retained with full pay and benefits.

While holding out hope for more accountability among UN investigators, Ban’s recent comments are also cause for concern. He stipulated that UN system-wide audits would only be available to Member-States upon request and that they must remain confidential. This practice directly contradicts Ban’s statement that the UN must “be totally transparent in the way the Organization is run.” Ban also suggests that investigation results may remain confidential if the “due process rights of individuals are involved.” While it is often important to maintain the confidentiality of witnesses, secrecy should never be used to shield the guilty from accountability.

In June, Ban will present a report on investigation procedures to the General Assembly. GAP urges the Secretary-General to include a proposal for one, system-wide investigative body in that proposal, as well as a system-wide Ethics Office and whistleblower protection policy.

Who is Dervis and Melkert watching ?

Kemal Dervis and Ad Melkert have set-up a firewall mechanism which has put together a Watch List of dissidents and potential "weak" loose- cannons-managers that can become problematic down the road.

Two SSAs at OIST were entrusted the job of Watching and screening thru thousand of outgoing and incoming personal and official emails and instant messages that those on the "list" have.

At end of each day a report with potential "red flags" is delivered at 6:00 pm to Gettu (Dervis's Chief of Staff) who than screens it and prepares briefing for Kemal and Ad and how to deal with the internal potential "uprising".

As any other dictatorship, the paranoia is high, and therefore we were not surprised when we learned that the first to be on the list were the Heads of Regional Bureaus, Heads of Thematic Groups, Comptroller and Treasurer, Head of Legal, Head of PSO and even the new head of OAPR.

But most dangerous game is that UNDP put under tight watch all correspondence of the so called "independent review panel" and all their email apparatus including LAN were doubled out and screened at end of each day by separate "trustful eyes". Two separate lines go from 7th and 8th floor of Uganda house to thru-their basement to "no-where...".

The list also contains entire "potential disturbing units", like BoM/PSO, BoM/Legal, BoM/Travel, etc. The most important element is that all American citizens working at HQs and those in the field have been put under the watch List and their emails (personal + undp.org - for those at HQs; and undp.org - for those at COs) are totally under 24 hour watch by super-potent computers who run instantly password cracking and use brutal force softwares to crack individual passwords and instant messaging passowrds (MSN + Skype).

OIST has also put coded names for each trouble individuals. Representatives of UNDP/UNFPA/UNOPS Staff Council are among those singled out as Red Flags. UNDP has created a dedicated parallel double to UNFPA email server to look out on the "german" (OIST coded name for Stephan Flaetgen - Vice President of Staf Council). He and Dimitri Samaras are among those whom are watched the most, and whose machines (desktops) are not only screened but are put a direct VPN to make sure that they don't use external drives to remove information out of their offices.

The most interesting thing is that UNDP's PSO/ACP approved without knowing - that they were approving the hiring of a firm and two long term consultants for OIST last November 07, whom not only were hired without any job description, but their current location is un-known and that they would have been granted direct administrative access and responsibility to the HQs servers (Email & Satellite Comm servers).

How can the United States of America, the host country for UNDP HQs and United Nations HQs allow that a foreign entity with super-natural immunities and internal established impunity, which have multiple time violated the national interest and security of US, be allowed to established such powerful illegal mechanisms who violate the rights of its staff, but most importantly violate the rights of the US citizens working within this organization ?

Does UNDP and UN knows that is illegal in the United States of America to scrutinize without a court order the emails of US citizens?

UNDP watch will publish the whole list of those under watch and will be sending a direct watch-out email to all those who's rights were violated int he past 6 months.

Who else Dervis was watching ? Maybe Ban Ki-moon ?

Continue to read UNDP Watch for more on this and thank you very much for your continuing support. Keep your internal docs comming.

UNDP's Procurement Support Office shredding thousands of files on vendors

A big shredder has been purchased and working full time at the basement of FF Building located in the East 45th Street in Manhattan.

Krishan Batra and James Provenzano are constantly delivering hundreds of thousand of pages and folder every afternoon for shredding. Folders are checked carefully and their electronic references are carefully listed with one of the most trusted Fridakis's followers who's role is to make sure that all hard-drives of Dell laptops and desktops of PSO are duly screened and cleaned.

Meanwhile two ATLAS experts have been engaged in a full time cleaning exercise within the ATLAS to delete all current listed vendors, active and non-active ones. Only the first two weeks of May, BOM/OIST and Atlas Support (17th floor) - under Akiko Yuge's direct supervision have cleaned and destroyed successfully the evidence of at least 176,432 vendors from the ATLAS procurement platforms.

The order to delete and destroy all vendor registration forms has gone to all Resident Representatives around the world, as well as Regional CPOs, whom are required that by the end of 31st May to have finished trashing and cleaning process of all "suspicious vendors". Including at least - 89 banned from the UN, 148 banned from World Bank, 283 banned from UNGM and thousand of vendors blacklisted under terrorist list of the United States Treasury and State Department.

Krishan's laptop is no longer in his desk's drawer where he used to leave it before, his and Lisa Roy's laptop has been totally wiped out and their HDs has been replaced by more "powerful" and clean ones. If anyone would be interested to verify, both their computers (laptops) have a brent new configured HD, as well as operating systems.

The order of Kemal Dervis is clear: - Destroy all evidence and make sure that nothing is left behind.

Staff of the UN express "No Confidence" on Secretary General and his team

By: Stewart Stogel Article Font Size

UNITED NATIONS -- United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, in office only 16 months, faces a staff in revolt.

The personally affable and easygoing U.N. chief was stunned by a vote of no confidence taken by the U.N. Staff Union on late last week.

The union, representing more than 5,000 employees at the New York City headquarters, sent a letter on Friday to Ban explaining their action, a copy of which was obtained by NewsMax.

In it, Staff Union pPresident Stephen Kisambira complains about Ban's "lack of access" to the union leadership:

"We have sought to meet with you, since you assumed office, to discuss directly with you simmering issues of concern to staff. You have accorded us a couple of perfunctory meetings. You have not responded to a single letter or resolution we have sent you. The indifference and lack of appropriate response in the past pressed the staff to express a vote of no confidence in senior administration officials, including the secretary-general."

Kisambira laments that the relationship with the office of the secretary-general, already combative with Kofi Annan, has actually gotten worse since Ban assumed office on Jan. 1, 2007.

Among the items the union says Ban and his staff have chosen to ignore are costs of living adjustments, a U.N. "stimulus" package for USA-based staff similar to President Bush's tax refund (U.N. employees pay a staff assessment but no U.S. taxes) and the allocation of temporary office space while U.N. headquarters undergoes a 5-year renovation.

The issue of staff safety overseas was also an issue of concern.

Last December, U.N. offices in Algeria were attacked by al-Qaida, leaving 22 dead and 40 wounded. The Algeria attack, the worst in U.N. history, surpassed the 2003 bombing of the world body's Baghdad headquarters that left 17 dead.

The trend, according to the Staff Union, has resulted in alleged incompetence by senior management from the previous Annan administration being allowed to continue.

As an example, they point to the recent appointment of Angela Kane (Germany) to the post of Under Secretary-General for Management despite repeated charges of mismanagement in past U.N. posts and numerous subsequent investigations that have criticized her performance.

Senior U.N. officials have privately expressed their "doubts" over the Ban appointment.

Another example of mismanagement cited by the Union is the vulnerability of the U.N.'s computer system.

In its letter to Ban it is charged that the computer system is "vulnerable to unauthorized use and access, abuse and breach of confidentiality especially with regard to communication by e-mail."

Coincidentally, Ban's U.N. Web site was hacked in August 2007.

The Web site was off-line for almost a day with no explanation from the U.N. as to how the attack took place or who was responsible.

Unfortunately for Ban, many inside the U.N.'s diplomatic corps express similar "concerns" regarding the secretary-general's "performance."

"It is incredible. He (Ban) has been in office a year and a half and he still does not understand how the United Nations works," confessed a veteran U.N. diplomat.

U.S. diplomats have remained silent on the latest turn of events.

It is noteworthy that none of the U.N.'s permanent five members (U.S., U.K., Russia, China and France), the de-facto governing broad of the world body, have come to the defense of the secretary-general.

Ban's office had no comment.

This is the truth the Executive Board needs to know of how much happiness is inside UNDP

In an unprecedented speech the President of UNDP/UNFPA/UNOPS Staff Council, Mr. Dimitri Samaras, laid down on January 31 2008- a completely different picture of what's going on inside UNDP.

Samaras words were so hard on Dervis that on his way out of the meeting, whispering to his "close" advisers, Kemal characterized it as an: -"unexpected hit below the belt".

In his speech during the Staff Global gathering, Samaras demanded from leadership some tough answers, about UNDP life.

Following are some of the passages of his speech:

On Security of UNDP Staff

• " Appeal to you to double your efforts to implement all measures, policies and strategies in order to make our organization a safer place and respond to our call for Zero tolerance pertaining to the violation of Staff Safety and Security"

On Transparency and Reform

• " UNDP staff are losing their sense of belonging and faith in UNDP"
• " Staff are improperly and unfairly managed and changes in Staff Management are necessary"
• " Staff expectations and concerns are neither addressed nor implemented"
• " Leadership uses inappropriately strategic placement/hiring (like Eveline Herfkens, etc);
• " dealing with problems post-factum (in a damage-control formula) shows lack of leadership and vision"
• " UNDP lacks of a system of justice to provide support and/or relief for staff grievances"
• " leadership has transformed UNDP from a merit-driven-organization to a "networking"-driven. Where staff has to kiss-... to get promoted"
• "managers operate out of given guidelines at all levels.....and instead of being held responsible they continue to act with impunity"
• "service contract and SSA holders continue to perform CORE functions"

Samaras also raised the issue of UNDP's Leadership claiming out-of-jurisdiction of UN Secretariat on Ethics and Ombudsman. He stated that:-"a separate Ombudsperson's office located in UNDP, loosely affiliated with the UN Secretariat, would hamper the General Assembly's initiative for a more fair and transparent system of justice".

Samaras also stressed that:-"a fragmented Ombudsperson's system similarly to the system of Ethics Office would not be in the interest of UNDP Staff" and that he would be "approaching the Secretary General Ban Ki Moon on this matter".

Today's address was a total blow to Dervis and Melkert pseudo-leadership and delivered a straight-forward message that the Staff Council will not bend to latest intimidation attempts from UNDP Management.

On the way out, many staff were congratulating Samaras for his strength and courage to stand in front of the leadership, while others smiling were reminding him of : - "when will his picture will be next in UNDP Watch or Innercity Press as a victim" or "when he will be the next whistleblower".

Samaras speech was delivered this afternoon to all mailboxes of UN Member States, including all major media acredited to the UN, by UNDP Watch volunteers.

Pack o' lies !!!

if you can stand it, chek out the MYFF 07 report to be presented at upcomming Executive Board meeting in Geneva in june 08. It is soooooooo soviet!!!

unfortunately, the intended audience of this pablum is UNDP's own Executive Board.

UNDP Whistleblower Details Comprehensive Wrongdoing in Somalia Projects

May 14, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Shelley Walden, International Program Associate
Phone: 202.408.0034 ext 156
Email: shelleyw@whistleblower.org

Contact: Bea Edwards, International Reform Director
Phone: 202.408.0034 ext 155, 202.841.1391
Email: beae@whistleblower.org


UNDP Whistleblower Details Comprehensive Wrongdoing in Somalia Projects
Evidence Shows Lack of Oversight, Retaliation, and Program Ties to Terrorist Groups


(Washington, D.C.) – A whistleblower represented by the Government Accountability Project (GAP) is alleging that actions taken by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) have allowed continued wrongdoing in the Somalia Office, which threatens to jeopardize the ability of remittance companies to comply with international anti-terrorism regulations.

GAP’s client, Dr. Ismail Ahmed, has shared a detailed dossier with the United Nations Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) that provides substantial evidence regarding ongoing fraud and corruption in the UNDP Somalia Remittances Programme over the last five years. This dossier details, among numerous other serious problems:


Corrupt practices and fraud used to award contracts to a consulting firm that established an improper relationship with UNDP country office management and program staff
UNDP’s failure to fully investigate repeated formal complaints of wrongdoing
Devastating impacts of the wrongdoing on the Somali remittance industry
Retaliation against Dr. Ahmed for his repeated attempts to expose wrongdoing

On March 28, 2008, Dr. Ahmed made an external disclosure to OIOS, as he believes that UNDP’s investigative unit – the Office of Audit and Investigations (OAI) – has a conflict of interest in this case. OAI has failed to fully investigate prior complaints of wrongdoing in this program and contracted with the consulting firm it is supposed to be investigating. OIOS has not yet determined if it will investigate the ongoing wrongdoing and retaliation that Dr. Ahmed exposed.

To read a letter detailing OAI’s conflicts of interest, and the reasons that OIOS should take jurisdiction of this case, click here: http://www.whistleblower.org/doc/2008/GAPLetterOIOS.pdf

“An urgent, independent investigation of this case – only by OIOS – is needed to prevent further wrongdoing in the UNDP Somalia Remittances Program,” stated Shelley Walden, GAP International Program Associate. “The failure of OIOS to do so could have devastating repercussions for the people of Somalia, the fight against money laundering, and whistleblowers across the UN system. OAI is definitely not the proper unit to investigate this case.”

Background on Dr. Ahmed & Remittances Program

Dr. Ahmed is an expert on economic issues in Somalia and a former UNDP staff member whose contract was allowed to expire in November 2007. He has over 20 years of work experience on Somali development issues and a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of London.

At UNDP, Dr. Ahmed worked as a financial services compliance advisor. In this position, he was responsible for providing guidance and support to the Somali Transmitters Association (SOMTA) in the development of a self-regulation system, as part of UNDP’s Somalia Remittances Programme. This program was launched in 2002 following the closure of Al-Barakaat, the largest Somali money transfer company, by the U.S. Treasury Department for alleged links with terrorist organizations.

In 2004 the Financial Services Development Project (FSDP) was launched with funding from the European Commission (EC) and Department for International Development (DFID) of the UK to expand the activities of the initiative that commenced in 2002. The overall objective of the FSDP was to strengthen Somali remittance companies’ ability to comply with international regulations that combat money laundering and terrorist financing,

UNDP Somalia is based in Nairobi, Kenya. The absence of effective central authorities in Somalia and the fact that the UN agencies are based outside the country have led to increasing concerns of accountability.

Alleged Wrongdoing by KMPG

Soon after Dr. Ahmed began working as a program officer at UNDP in October 2005, he witnessed irregularities and corrupt practices related to contracts issued to the Nairobi-based accounting firm, KPMG East Africa. Since the launch of the Remittance Programme, KPMG had won all the professional services contracts awarded by the program. Moreover, a senior partner of KPMG East Africa who had prepared the Programme documents and served as the principal consultant for some of the contracts awarded to the firm was appointed as UNDP Chief Technical Adviser, responsible for managing the same program. This employee was apparently awarded his post without any competition or advertising, and was listed as a lead consultant on the project he was overseeing, meaning that the payments he approved were going to himself as a consultant and shareholder of KPMG. Dr. Ahmed also learned that KPMG had been awarded several contracts without a competitive bidding process and had submitted a plagiarized report to UNDP. Dr. Ahmed’s dossier provides details of five of the KPMG contracts and presents evidence supporting the allegations of wrongdoing.

UNDP Support to Company with Suspected Links to Terrorist Organizations

Dr. Ahmed’s dossier also contains information about UNDP Somalia supporting Dalsan, a Somali remittance company with suspected links to terrorist organizations, potentially in violation of UNDP and international regulations. Dalsan was co-founded by the former spokesman of Al-Ittihad al-Islamiya (AIAI), an organization placed on a list of terrorist organizations by the U.S. in 2001 and by the UN Sanctions Committee. Dalsan senior managers included Abdilkadir Hashi Farah “Ayro”, who was the chairman of the company when it collapsed in May 2006. Abdilkadir is the younger brother of Aden Hashi “Ayro”, the top al-Qaeda commander in Somalia. Aden Hashi “Ayro” was killed earlier this month in a U.S. missile attack.

From early 2003 to late 2005 the UNDP Somalia Office provided Dalsan critical support that may have helped the company to flout international regulations and commit a major fraud in which hundreds of Somali migrants and remittance recipients lost an estimated $30 million dollars. The support provided by UNDP to this company ranges from the release of frozen funds, to helping senior company officials obtain visas and travel documents. Most importantly, UNDP supported the nomination of the UK managing director of Dalsan, Mukhtar Sheikh Osman, to become the Chairman of the Somali Financial Services Association (SFSA) Europe and assume the overall responsibility for the establishment of self-regulation systems for the Somali remittance industry.

Retaliation

In March 2006, Dr. Ahmed put together evidence of the corruption involving KPMG and the UNDP country office, and submitted evidence of wrongdoing anonymously. UNDP’s investigations unit failed to conduct a thorough investigation at that time and the wrongdoing subsequently intensified.

In October 2006, Dr. Ahmed submitted a detailed dossier to UNDP Country Office management documenting his concerns. The next month, UNDP abruptly transferred Dr. Ahmed to Dubai. UNDP proceeded to deny issuing him a mobilization payment and residency visa. His family was forced to leave Dubai after two months because UNDP failed to secure residence visas for them.

A year later, Dr. Ahmed learned that his dossier had never been forwarded to UNDP management in New York and that no investigation had been launched. He was told by his supervisors that the dossier was in a “secure” location and that he would not be able to retrieve it. Dr. Ahmed also discovered that all the hard copies of key correspondences, proposals and bidding documents regarding consulting contracts in the last four years had been removed from the folders in the Somalia office. Dr. Ahmed decided to compile a new dossier, which he submitted to the UNDP Administrator on November 22, 2007.

In October 2007, however, Dr. Ahmed was informed that because of new instructions from senior UNDP management in New York regarding the Financial Services Development Project (FSDP), his contract was not going to be renewed and that FSDP activities would be closed down immediately.

Dr. Ahmed faced severe retaliation for his disclosures. First, UNDP transferred him and denied issuing him an agreed-upon mobilization payment, work permit and residency visa. Then, UNDP failed to renew his contract. A UNDP representative also attempted to blacklist him by telling Somali remittance companies, several of which had already offered Dr. Ahmed a job, not to hire him. All the companies subsequently withdrew their job offers. UNDP then withheld two months of Dr. Ahmed’s salary and other outstanding payments, blocked his pension fund contributions and launched an investigation against him.

UNDP’s Ethics Office

In December 2007, after Dr. Ahmed learned from OAI that they had not yet made a decision about whether his case warranted formal investigation, he forwarded a copy of his complaint to the UNDP Ethics Advisor. In January 2008 the Advisor found a prima facie case of retaliation that warranted an investigation.

GAP subsequently wrote to the UNDP Ethics Advisor requesting interim relief for Dr. Ahmed, which the Ethics Advisor is authorized to provide. In a letter, the UNDP Ethics Advisor said that he could not grant this request, saying that:

“because Mr. Ahmed wrote to me on 17 December 2007 (17 days after his contract had expired), it was not possible for me to recommend suspension of the action as that action had already taken place. It was obviously also not possible to recommend that Mr. Ahmed be reassigned or that he be placed on special leave with full pay as he had already separated from the organization.”

This fails to acknowledge the fact that OAI, which was responsible for receiving complaints of retaliation in November 2007, received Dr. Ahmed’s complaint before he separated from the Organization. Considering that the UNDP Ethics Advisor assumed his functions on December 1, 2007, and Mr. Ahmed’s contract expired at the end of November, Dr. Ahmed could not have submitted a complaint to the Ethics Advisor before his contract was terminated.

“Dr. Ahmed thought that he would be protected by the UNDP whistleblower policy when he came forward with allegations of severe wrongdoing and retaliation,” said Walden. “Instead, UNDP penalized this whistleblower because of flaws in its protection system. This demonstrates the inadequacy of UNDP’s new whistleblower rules and the need for a unified whistleblower protection policy in the UN system.”

In 2005, then-UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued a whistleblower protection policy that was a breakthrough for freedom of expression at intergovernmental organizations. But in 2007, after the UN Ethics Office established by this policy ruled in favor of a UNDP whistleblower, UNDP claimed that the policy was never meant to apply system-wide. UNDP then proceeded to create its own whistleblower protection policy, which offers substantially less protection. Dr. Ahmed is one of the first whistleblowers to test this new policy.

“By turning a blind eye to wrongdoing and threatening to cancel the remittance program because of its own blunders, UNDP has wasted funds, undermined genuine efforts to combat money laundering, and damaged its own credibility,” said Walden. “The United Nations must show its commitment to accountability by urgently investigating this case and ending the intense retaliation against this whistleblower.”

Government Accountability Project

The Government Accountability Project is the nation’s leading whistleblower protection organization. Through litigating whistleblower cases, publicizing concerns and developing legal reforms, GAP’s mission is to protect the public interest by promoting government and corporate accountability. Founded in 1977, GAP is a non-profit, non-partisan advocacy organization based in Washington, D.C.

#####

Government Accountability Project • www.whistleblower.org
National Office
1612 K Street, NW Suite #1100
Washington, D.C. 20006
202.408.0034

UNITED NATIONS CASH-FOR-AL QAIDA PROGRAMME

Would you believe, here comes yet another scandal surrounding the UN Development Program, or UNDP, home to the North Korea Cash-for-Kim scandal, and flagship agency of the UN. In that case, the UNDP ejected the whistleblower, Artjon Shkurtaj, who called attention to the problems that led to the shutdown in March, 2007 of the UNDP office in North Korea.

The UNDP then rejected the recommendation of the UN Ethics office that he be given whistleblower protection. The Cash-for-Kim saga entailed a great many sub-scandals, including counterfeit U.S. cash stored in the safe of the UNDP office in Pyongyang, UNDP transfers of money on behalf of other UN agencies to accounts linked to North Korea’s weapons proliferation network, and North Korea laundering funds through UNDP-related accounts.

But let us fast-forward to the matter at hand –

– Where the setting is the UNDP in Somalia. Now, there are reports of another whistleblower, Ismail Ahmed, a British national, kicked out by the UNDP. Ahmed claims he was trying to sound alarms about UNDP support for a Somali money transfer company with what Reuters, in a dispatch about his claims, calls “suspected links to Islamic militants.” And what militants would those be?

Let us browse on to the details on this case provided by the Government Accountability Project, or GAP, which in a dossier on its web site says that Ahmed’s allegations include information about UNDP support from 2003-2005 for a Somali remittance company, Dalsan, which collapsed in 2006, with $30 million disappearing in the process. The problems with Dalsan went beyond alleged fraud. GAP also notes that Dalsan was “co-founded by a former spokesman of Al-Ittihad al-Islamiya (AIAI), an organization placed on a list of terrorist organizations by the U.S. in 2001 and by the UN Sanctions Committee.” That would be the UN list of “Entities and other groups and undertakings associated with Al-Qaida.” GAP further notes that Dalsan’s chairman when it collapsed in 2006 was Abdilkadir Hashi Farah “Ayro,” who is “the younger brother of Aden Hashi ‘Ayro’ ” – who was a top al-Qaeda commander in Somalia, reportedly killed two weeks ago by an American missile strike.

The GAP dossier further alleges that the UNDP helped Dalsan obtain the release of frozen funds, get visas and travel documents for senior company officials, and secure the appointment of a Dalsan company officer as chairman of the Somali Financial Services Association (Europe), handling the rule-making for the Somali remittance industry. According to the GAP, all that fed into the set-up in which “the UNDP Somalia Office provided Dalsan critical support that may have helped the company to flout international regulations and commit a major fraud in which hundreds of Somali migrants and remittance recipients lost an estimated $30 million.”

What do the folks at the UNDP headquarters in NY have to say about this? According to Reuters, the UNDP is promising to look into this “completely” and “get to the bottom of this as thoroughly as possible.” To that end, reports Reuters, a UNDP spokesman says an investigation team will ”fly in mid-June to Nairobi, where the UNDP’s Somalia programme is based.” Hmmm. Mid-June. For the UNDP this is so urgent that it will take a month before a team can even head for Nairobi. Maybe they have to get in line behind the UNDP’s much-delayed investigation into its own handling of Cash-for-Kim and the attendant whistleblower issues. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon promised in January, 2007 that the UN would get to the bottom of that one right away, and 16 months later, we’re still waiting. Come to think of it, when Cash-for-Kim broke, Ban-Ki-Moon initially promised a world-wide audit of all UN systems — an idea he then scrapped the following week. Too bad. Ismail Ahmed’s allegations about UNDP support for a company linked to Al Qaeda might have surfaced sooner.

As it is, the questions proliferating around the UNDP, and what Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen is calling its “immutable corruption,” become ever more urgent and disturbing. As the UN’s flagship agency, the UNDP now has an annual budget of $5 billion and disburses another $4 billion per year worldwide on behalf of other UN agencies and donor programs. In countries such as North Korea, Somalia, and beyond, what exactly has the UNDP been developing?

Hey......a new actor is in town !!!!

Ros-Lehtinen Condemns UNDP Retaliation Against Whistleblower

NEWS

House Foreign Affairs Committee
U.S. House of Representatives

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Republican

CONTACT: Sam Stratman, (202) 226-7875, May 14, 2008
Alex Cruz, (202) 225-8200

http://foreignaffairs.republicans.house.gov


For IMMEDIATE Release

Ros-Lehtinen Condemns UNDP Retaliation Against Whistleblower


Agency reportedly fired employee after he exposed ties to militant group

(WASHINGTON) – U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) today expressed "deep disappointment" over reports that the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has taken retaliatory action against an employee who alerted authorities to the agency's support of a company with links to Islamist militants in Somalia.

According to reports, UNDP employee Ismail Ahmed was threatened and fired after he exposed the agency's cooperation with a company that has suspected links to the extremist faction al-Ittihad al-Islamiya. The UN agency came under criticism earlier this year for similar action taken against Artjon Shkurtaj, a UNDP contractor who was fired after he reported that UNDP mismanagement in North Korea may have allowed U.S. funds to be directed toward to the regime's weapons program.

"The report that UNDP has once again taken action against an employee who blew the whistle on malfeasance is deeply disappointing and reveals the depth of immutable corruption at UNDP," said Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The charge that a UN agency has been working with known Islamist extremists comes on the heels of a report earlier this month that the UN Relief and Work Agency (UNRWA) employed a leading rocket-maker of Islamic Jihad in Gaza. On Wednesday, Ros-Lehtinen requested that U.S. contributions to UNRWA, which are voluntary, be zeroed-out of the 2009 budget.

"This report documents the second time in a month that we have learned of UN agencies working with violent Islamists," said Ros-Lehtinen. "While the United States pours resources into the fight against Islamist extremism, multiple UN agencies aid and abet the very militants we are battling. If abiding by basic standards of conduct is beyond the reach of these agencies, the United States will see no alternative but to stop patronizing these organizations altogether. As the largest donor to the UN, the U.S.must demand that the United Nations properly use the hard-earned money of American taxpayers," she added.

APP-Pakistan: Senators demand audit of UNDP accounts

ISLAMABAD, May 14 (APP): Senators on Wednesday have demanded an audit of the expenditures of Rs 5 billion funds provided to the National Commission for Human Development (NCHD) by the government, which was not allowed by concerned authorities.

Responding to a point of order in the Upper House of the Parliament, Leader of the House, Mian Raza Rabbani said the government is holding back a tranche of Rs 874 million of the Commission after its chief declined to hold audit of the Commission’s accounts.

He said Commission had not allowed the audit of the expenditures of Rs 5 billion fund provided by the government besides an amount of US$ 27.8 million raised by NCHD from international donors including the UNDP, World Bank and USAID.

The Leader of the House in Senate said as per the demand of the senators from both sides, the matter should have been brought to the notice of the prime minister so that he might order a detailed audit into the accounts of the Commission which was established for the welfare of the common man.

He added that the Commission should give detailed presentation to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani regarding its expenditures and projects.

Responding to another point of order, Raza Rabbani said Pakistan Air Force has acquired 60,000 acres of land in Lasbella to be used for firing range.

He quoted the Secretary Defense saying that the title of land would not be transferred and it would be used for the testing of aircraft being manufactured in Kamrah with the cooperation of China.

However, he said the compensation being provided to the land owners falling in the premises of firing range is yet unknown to him, adding that he would inform the House later.

Later, after the consensus from both sides, the Chairman Senate moved the matter to the Senate Standing Committee on Defense to resolve the compensation issue of the land owners and ensure the proper usage of land.

It is worth mentioning that the Senators on Tuesday had expressed fears that the land would be misused. Some of them went on to say that it might be used for developing housing societies instead of firing range.

Regarding tribal feuds in Sindh province, he said the Inspector General has given a detailed briefing to the concerned chief minister who would appoint an advisor to dedicate his services for the very cause.

To another point of order, the Leader of the House said the government would not take any decision about the allotment of land to UAE-based firm for Mirani Dam against prescribed rules.

He said the firm has signed a 20-year lease agreement with local farmers against Rs6, 500 per acre annual.

He told the House that matter would further be discussed in a meeting with the chief minister of Balochistan as was desired by the firm.