Sunday, August 31, 2008

SP wilde liever juridische zaak tegen Herfkens

DEN HAAG - De SP is het niet eens met de oplossing van het conflict met oud-minister Eveline Herfkens. SP-Tweede Kamerlid Ewout Irrgang had liever gezien dat minister Maxime Verhagen (Buitenlandse Zaken) haar voor de rechter had gesleept. „Ze komt nu weg zonder juridische procedure.”

Het gaat Irrgang niet om het geld maar vooral om de voorbeeldfunctie en de rechtsgelijkheid. Hij vindt dat Herfkens net als andere Nederlanders moet worden behandeld die de regels overtreden, al dan niet bewust. „Zij moeten ook zonder pardon het geld terugbetalen, bijvoorbeeld onterecht ontvangen huursubsidie”, aldus Irrgang.

Hij ziet het gebaar van Herfkens om een jaar geen salaris te innen als een manier om onder zo'n procedure uit te komen en gezichtsverlies te voorkomen. „Ik beschouw het als een indirecte schulderkenning.”

Verhagens schijngevecht


In een juridisch lastige kwestie heeft minister Verhagen toch nog iets weten binnen te slepen. Herfkens gaat een jaar voor bijna niets aan de slag bij de VN, als morele genoegdoening voor het onterecht ontvangen van 280.000 dollar aan huursubsidie.

Daar zijn nog wel wat kanttekeningen bij te maken. Als Herfkens toch twijfelt aan de moraliteit van het ontvangen van dat geld, waarom stort ze het dan niet terug? Dan is iedereen pas echt blij.

Ten tweede heeft Verhagen zelf gezegd dat hij zijn uiterste best zou doen om het geld terug te vorderen, desnoods via de rechter. Deze snelle deal lijkt niet op het uitputtende gevecht dat hij zei te gaan voeren. Ten derde is een jaar werken ter compensatie van 280.000 dollar niet echt voldoende. Verhagen onderschrijft zelf de discussie over publieke topinkomens. Daarbij is afgesproken dat met publiek geld betaald personeel niet meer mag verdienen dan het salaris van de minister-president. Met wat ingewikkelde berekeningen is dat vastgesteld op circa E180.000. Dat zou betekenen dat in Verhagens visie de waarde van een jaar arbeid van Herfkens gelijk is aan die van de hoogste publiek betaalde Nederlander. Dat lijkt me overtrokken.

Maar het belangrijkste is natuurlijk dat die $280.000 is gestolen van de Nederlandse belastingbetaler. Het werken voor de VN compenseert geen Nederlander. Sterker nog: je kunt je afvragen of de huidige VN niet een vijandige organisatie is. Ik zie het Nederlandse belang in ieder geval nooit op de agenda staan.

Verhagen kan bij allerhande betrokkenen proberen het geld terug te halen: bij zichzelf als politiek verantwoordelijke, bij de ambtenaren van Buitenlandse Zaken die het voorstel deden in strijd met de wet, bij de ambtenaren van de VN die er geen stokje voor staken, bij Herfkens leidinggevende bij de VN die toch een contract met haar had waarin het aannemen van geld verboden werd, of Herkens zelf natuurlijk als de profiteur.

Maar misschien is dat allemaal erg lastig. Ik stel dan ook voor dat Herfkens in Nederland aan de slag gaat. Hoe lang zou Herkens moeten werken, en in welke baan eigenlijk, zodat Nederland weer $280.000 rijker is? Nog een betere vraag: heeft Herfkens ooit bijgedragen aan de Nederlandse welvaart? Ze was eerst ambtenaar op Buitenlandse Zaken met als functie Nederlands geld te besteden aan structurele hulp aan derde-wereldlanden. Dat soort hulp is ineffectief erkent de VN nu ook zelf. Daarna was ze Tweede Kamerlid voor de PvdA. Ze zal daar niet slechter voor de Nederlandse welvaart zijn geweest dan de andere PvdA-kamerleden. Ze ging verder als directeur bij de Wereldbank. Een sympathieke organisatie maar leningen aan landen waar het ontbreekt aan instituties zijn als graankorrels op de rotsen. De Wereldbank is ook de initiatiefnemer voor het kwijtschelden van schulden aan de armste landen. Die taktiek geeft al aan dat leningen op een onverantwoorde manier zijn verstrekt.

Vervolgens werd ze minister van Ontwikkelingssamenwerking. Je moet zeggen: ze is wel consequent in haar aannames over hoe de wereld verbeterd kan worden.

En daarna was ze dus betrokken bij de Millennium Development Goals, waarbij ze onterecht extra geld toegestopt kreeg. Nu ik er nog eens over nadenk is Verhagen misschien wel slimmer dan ik eerst vermoedde. Herfkens kostte Nederland altijd al geld, en waar ze nu zit kan ze weinig kwaad. Per saldo zijn we zo het beste af.

"280.000 dollar? Doe mij zo'n baan!"

AMSTERDAM - Nederland gaat masaal op sollicitatie bij Maxime Verhagen. "Een jaar werken voor 280.000 dollar? Wat is het telefoonnummer van deze minister? Ik wil ook zo'n functie!".

Lezers zijn zeer slecht te spreken over de regeling die Verhagen trof met oud-minister Herfkens van Ontwikkelingssamenwerking over de te veel ontvangen huurgelden. Herfkens gaat een jaar lang gratis voor de VN werken, als tegenprestatie voor de 280.000 dollar huurvergoeding die ze ten onrechte kreeg. Voor een jaar werk krijgt ze het symbolische bedrag van 1 dollar. Wat ze daarvoor moet doen is onduidelijk.

"280.000 dollar? Is dat niet ver boven de Balkenende norm? Herfkens heeft gefraudeerd en is Nederlandse, als ze met iemand zou moeten onderhandelen is het wel de rechter!", aldus Guusje Nadorst, Zoetermeer.

"Moet je eens zien hoe snel ze met onkostenvergoeding voor allerlei andere zaken komt. Dit is toch niet realistisch, laat ze gewoon een regeling treffen en per maand een gedeelte van haar schuld afbetalen", aldus een boze lezer uit Gouda.

Afgezien van het feit dat velen 280.000 euro veel geld vinden voor een jaartje werken, verbazen lezers zich erover dat Herfkend er zo makkelijk vanaf komt. "Mijn dochter was door ziekte te laat met het inleveren van een brief bij Sociale Zaken en kreeg direct een boete door inhouding"

Gustav uit Amsterdam: "Het moet toch niet gekker worden. Een nomale burger moet de cel in of alles tot de laatste cent terugbetalen, maar onze politici worden met zachte hand behandeld".

Mark uit Weert: "Het is weer typisch een gevalletje van elkaar de handen boven het hoofd houden. Wat een walgelijke vertoning. Het wordt echt tijd dat de bezem door Den Haag gaat."

Aanbod Herfkens gaat oppositie niet ver genoeg

Van onze verslaggever
gepubliceerd op 29 augustus 2008 02:45, bijgewerkt op 29 augustus 2008 16:09

DEN HAAG - De oppositie in de Tweede Kamer neemt geen genoegen met de voorlopige afwikkeling van de zaak-Herfkens. De bereidheid van ex-minister Eveline Herfkens (Ontwikkelingssamenwerking, PvdA) om een jaar lang voor een symbolisch bedrag van 1 dollar voor de Verenigde Naties te werken, gaat de VVD en de SP niet ver genoeg. CDA en PvdA zijn wel tevreden over het ‘gebaar’ van de voormalige bewindsvrouw.

Minister Verhagen (Buitenlandse Zaken, CDA) deelde de Kamer donderdag mee dat hij het aanbod van Herfkens accepteert. Eerder had hij haar gevraagd vrijwillig het bedrag terug te betalen dat ze als VN-medewerker in New York vanuit Nederland ontving, als ‘huursubsidie’ in de periode 2002-2006. Dat gebeurde in strijd met VN-regels.

Herfkens zei ‘blij en opgelucht’ te zijn dat Verhagen de zaak als afgedaan bestempelt. ‘De minister geeft ruiterlijk toe dat ik niet verwijtbaar heb gehandeld’, zo liet ze vanuit de Verenigde Staten weten. Haar devies is: ‘zand erover en aan de slag’. Herfkens heeft in de VN de speciale taak om wereldwijd aandacht te vragen voor de bestrijding van armoede. In zijn brief aan de Kamer prijst Verhagen haar inspanningen.

VVD-Kamerlid Boekestijn noemt het schandalig dat de minister niet naar de rechter stapt: ‘Herfkens geeft bij de VN één jaarsalaris van 120.000 dollar op, terwijl ze voor 280.000 dollar in het krijt staat. Iedere Nederlander die ten onrechte subsidie ontvangt, moet elke cent, zelfs met rente, terugbetalen’. Volgens SP’er Irrgang maakt Verhagen wel degelijk kans in een rechtszaak: ‘Herfkens’ bereidheid om gratis voor de VN te werken, is een indirecte schuldbekentenis’.

Every Dutch person who wrongfully receives a subsidy should be made to pay back every penny with interest

Eveline Herfkens to work for free for one year:

Someone facing a significant pay cut this year is former Development Cooperation Minister Eveline Herfkens who has announced that for one year she will work for the United Nations for the symbolic sum of just one dollar. Her gesture is the upshot of a scandal in which she received funds from the Dutch government towards her accommodation in New York, against the rules of the UN. Her refusal to pay the money back caused something of a stink.

"As far as I'm concerned, the case is now closed" says Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen in de Volkskrant, admitting that legal action to recover the money would have been pointless since Herfkens "has done nothing illegal".

Not everyone agrees, however. The paper quotes one irate VVD MP who says "Every Dutch person who wrongfully receives a subsidy should be made to pay back every penny with interest" while a Socialist MP interprets the former minister's willingness to work for nothing as "an indirect admission of guilt".

De Telegraaf's editorial lambasts everyone concerned. "It's a typical wishy-washy political deal: everyone is responsible so no one is guilty." The paper goes on "That sum of EUR 190,000 was forked out by the Dutch taxpayers. And how exactly do they benefit from having Herfkens doing a spot of charity work in the bureaucratic jungle of the UN?"

Herfkens gaat 1 dollar verdienen


New York, 28 aug. Minister Verhagen (CDA, Buitenlandse Zaken) komt terug op zijn voornemen de ten onrechte aan Eveline Herfkens verstrekte huurvergoedingen terug te vorderen. Verhagen wil de zaak bij nader inzien achter zich laten door Herfkens één jaar voor de VN te laten werken voor een salaris van 1 dollar (0,68 euro).Nieuws - Verhagen gaat geld terugvorderen van Herfkens

Dat schrijft de minister in een brief aan de Tweede Kamer. Eerder vond de Kamer nog unaniem dat de vergoedingen moesten worden teruggevorderd.

Herfkens (PvdA) is oud-minister van Ontwikkelingssamenwerking. In 2002 werd zij een van Nederlands hoogste diplomaten bij de Verenigde Naties. De Nederlandse staat bood haar toen een huurvergoeding aan. Om de onafhankelijkheid van VN-diplomaten te waarborgen mogen zij geen geld aannemen van hun eigen overheid. Herfkens had dit kunnen weten omdat zij de interne gedragscode waarin dit staat heeft ontvangen en ondertekend.

De juridische dienst van de VN deed vier maanden onderzoek naar de kwestie. „Het lijkt erop”, stelden de onderzoekers in mei, dat Herfkens zich „niet bewust” was van de regels. Ook zou ze „in goed vertrouwen” gehandeld hebben. De Nederlandse staat had de VN-regels voor lidstaten ook overtreden en „had dat kunnen weten”.

In mei vond Verhagen dat de overtreding Herfkens was aan te rekenen. Daarom wilde hij „actie ondernemen” om het geld terug te vorderen, desnoods via de rechter. In de brief van vandaag gaat Verhagen voorbij aan zijn standpunt van mei. Hij verwijst slechts naar een brief uit februari toen het interne VN-onderzoek nog niet afgerond was.

Nu stelt hij dat UNDP de zaak als afgedaan beschouwt en dat hij zelf „nogmaals juridisch advies heeft ingewonnen”. Daaruit trekt hij de conclusie „dat er onvoldoende grondslag is voor het terugvorderen”.

Herfkens weigerde bij herhaling het geld terug te betalen; zij vond dat haar geen blaam trof omdat zij niet zelf om de huursuppletie gevraagd had. Bovendien was ze te druk met haar werk om zich in de VN-regels te verdiepen. Nu schrijft Verhagen dat Herfkens zelf het aanbod heeft gedaan tot een vergelijk te komen en zich daarmee „serieus rekenschap geeft van de politieke dimensie van de discussie”.

Herfkens noch UNDP reageerde vandaag op verzoeken om commentaar. Verhagen zegt te hopen dat deze oplossing „bijdraagt aan het herstel van de reputatieschade die mevrouw Herfkens heeft geleden”.

Tweede Kamer kan Herfkens-deal repareren

De deal tussen Eveline Herfkens en minister Verhagen betekent nog niet definitief dat de Nederlandse belastingbetaler zijn geld kwijt is. Als de Kamer wil, kan er nog veel worden rechtgezet

Door Eric Vrijsen

Van Eveline Herfkens (PvdA) kun je veel zeggen, maar ze geeft toch nog een jaarsalaris van 120.000 dollar toe. Ze erkent daarmee volmondig dat ze fout zat, of niet soms?

Tussen 2002 en 2007 had ze ten onrechte 280.000 dollar aan Nederlandse huursubsidie ontvangen. CDA-minister Maxime Verhagen (Buitenlandse Zaken) beloofde eind mei het bedrag geheel of gedeeltelijk terug te vorderen. Nu neemt hij genoegen met Herfkens’ gebaar om één jaar bij de VN te werken voor één symbolische dollar.



Dwingen
Niemand had haar daartoe kunnen dwingen, behalve het VN Ontwikkelingsproject (UNDP), haar werkgever. In 2002 kreeg Herfkens een duidelijk arbeidsreglement waarin stond dat ze van niemand anders geld mocht ontvangen. Ze tekende voor ontvangst. Dat ze toch 280.000 dollar aannam uit Nederland, was dus niet toegestaan. Maar de VN bedekte het met de mantel der liefde: ‘Ze was te goeder trouw.’

Dat laatste is natuurlijk onzin. Herfkens was niet alleen minister, maar ook bewindvoerder bij de Wereldbank geweest. Ze móet hebben geweten dat het niet mocht.

Maar juridisch is dat nu niet meer hard te maken. Hoe moreel verwerpelijk Herfkens in Nederlandse ogen ook handelde, Verhagen is in een rechtszaak kansloos. In juridische zin leeft Herfkens namelijk in conflict met de VN. Een rechter in New York zal al snel oordelen dat Verhagen daar niks mee te maken heeft.

Nog niet dood
Politiek is deze veelbesproken zaak echter nog niet dood. CDA en PvdA dekken Verhagen. Maar VVD, SP, PVV en CU pleiten tóch voor rechtszaken. Verhagen zal dat afwimpelen: ‘Dat kost kapitalen aan advocaten en het leidt tot niets.’

Toch kunnen de partijen nog veel rechtzetten. Ze kunnen proberen de begroting van Buitenlandse Zaken met 120.000 dollar, maar het liefst 280.000 dollar te verminderen. Dat geld kan makkelijk worden bespaard door de jaarlijkse bijdragen van tientallen miljoenen aan het VN Ontwikkelingsproject dienovereenkomstig te verminderen. Want: ‘Onze lieve Eveline werkt nu toch een jaartje voor één armzalige buck bij jullie!’

Zo keert de foutief uitgekeerde 280.000 dollar toch nog (deels) terug naar de Nederlandse belastingbetaler. En misschien nog belangrijker: die kauwgumachtige VN-organisatie met zijn ‘te goeder trouw’-directie wordt, althans symbolisch, op zijn nummer gezet.

Dat is in het belang van de armoedebestrijding. Verhagen en PvdA-collega Bert Koenders van Ontwikkelingssamenwerking moeten dus niet aankomen met een jammerklacht dat ‘de armen hier niet onder mogen lijden’.

Former Dutch minister keeps UN removal money


Former Dutch development cooperation minister Eveline Herfkens will not be forced to return money she received towards the cost of her apartment in New York. Between 2002 and 2006, the Dutch foreign ministry paid getting on for 200,000 euros towards her rental and removal expenses after she started working for the United Nations.

She had the rank of assistant secretary-general and was based in New York. The payments later turned out to be against UN regulations and Dutch MPs demanded she return the money.

However, Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen has now written to parliament, saying Ms Herfkens acted in good faith. The United Nations Development Programme, her employer, is also not insisting on restitution. Ms Herfkens has apologised for her oversight and has offered to work for a year for no salary.

Dutch former Minister and UN employee - Eveline Herfkens Allowed to Keep 280,000 Dollars

THE HAGUE, 30/08/08 - Dutch UN employee Eveline Herfkens does not have to pay back any of the 280,000 dollars that she wrongfully received from the Foreign Ministry. She used this money to rent a luxury flat in Manhattan from 2002 to 2006.

Foreign Minister Maxime Verhagen concludes that Herfkens has not acted incorrectly as far as his department is concerned. There are therefore no grounds for demanding the money back, he wrote to the Lower House.

The MPs had insisted that steps be taken to recover the wrongfully paid money from Herfkens. The conservatives (VVD), socialists (SP) and Party for Freedom (PVV) are not satisfied with Verhagen's letter and will demand clarification.

Verhagen has agreed with Herfkens that as a gesture, she will "work for the UN Millennium Goals" for a year for the symbolic sum of 1 dollar. He did not specify what activities this involved, though.

Herfkens, a Labour (PvdA) member, was Develop Cooperation Minister from 1998-2002. She then took up work with the UNDP in New York. Verhagen's ministry paid her 7,000 dollars a month from 2002 to 2006 for the rent of a flat in Manhattan, in addition to her UN salary. This was not permitted by either the UN rules or the ministry rules.

Friday, August 29, 2008

Meanwhile, Over at the UN: Cashing In On Terrorism?

While we wait for details of an Obama-Biden ticket that will surely propose an even deeper love affair with the United Nations than that of the Condi Rice State Department, here’s one of those United Nations conundrums:

Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon will be convening a UN symposium in New York next month on supporting victims of terrorism.

But the UN still hasn’t managed to come up with a basic definition of terrorism.

So if the UN can’t even figure out who’s a terrorist, how will the UN decide who’s a victim?

For a clue about where this latest initiative from Ban is likely to take us, check out the language in the UN press release linked above. Ban’s terror-victim forum, described as “the first of its kind at the United Nations,” is supposed to “help Member States to stand as one to support the victims of terrorism and to encourage civil society’s involvement against the scourge…” etc. etc.

“Stand as one”–?? Maybe Ban hasn’t noticed, but this is the fast track to the UN’s usual brand of Orwellian politics and moral bankruptcy. There are some UN member states — such as Iran — that like the idea of obliterating other entire member states, and support terrorists, such as Hezbollah, as a matter of state policy. (Although at the UN, Hezbollah cannot be regarded as a terrorist group, because there is no definition of terrorism).

For the UN, of course, it’s boom busines to keep ginning up new programs for an ever-expanding list of assorted groups of “victims.” Every new initiative becomes a rationale for more UN conferences, jobs, and solicitations for money. Whether any real victims are actually helped (or harmed) tends to become a secondary issue, if not simply irrelevant to the servicing and gourmet feeding of the UN organism — the conferences on Bali, the aid to dictators, the billions for peacekeeping forces that can’t keep peace and also can’t seem to keep their hands off the children they are supposed to protect. The UN has by now involved itself with so many categories of “victims” that by now the only victims for whom Ban is not convening forums or launching programs or dispatching envoys would seem to be the taxpayers of the developed democratic world, who fund most of the UN’s opaque, unaccountable patronage systems.

In this case, supporting victims of terrorism might sound worthy — after all, who wouldn’t be sympathetic to genuine victims of terrorism? But before Ban starts convening participants from “all regions, cultures and religions, representing a diversity of terror-victim experiences,” how about the UN producing a clear and reasonable definition of this experience Ban wants the world-as-one to address?

If Ban really wants the UN to do something useful to stop the scourge of terrorism, he’d do better to start by cleaning up his own house. Step one: Instead of holding a new symposium, he could stand up and call loud and clear for member states to stay away from the UN’s Durban II conference, now being planned for 2009 by the likes of Libya, Iran, Cuba, Russia and Pakistan — which shows every signs of becoming a replay of the malevolent 2001 hate-fest that was Durban I. Before the UN starts cashing in on teror-victims as a source of employment and per diems for the UN itself, His Eminence the Secretary-General ought to bestir himself to defuse the UN itself as a mothership of moral equivalence, and an incubator of hatred.

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Kemal Dervis appoints the former President of NetAid and aide to Maurice Strong as head of UNCDF (what a shame)

PAYBACK TIME FOR LOYALTY TO THE SYSTEM

David Morrison joined the United Nations Capital Development Fund (UNCDF) as the Executive Secretary in July 2008. In this position, he sets UNCDF's strategic direction and provides organizational leadership and management for the organization.

Mr. Morrison began his career with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) as Junior Professional Officer in DPR Korea in the late 1980s. (Morrison knew well about the US$ counterfeit in UNDP's Safe in DPRK- his signature was in the safe-count inventory - but he lied to US Congress)

He returned to UNDP in 1999-2000 as an Advisor to the Administrator on Strategy and Partnerships, serving on the incoming Administrator's Transition Team, and helping to create UNDP's Business Plans 2000 - 2003. From 2000-2004 he was President of NetAid, a partnership initiative founded by UNDP and Cisco Systems to use the Internet to fight poverty. Prior to joining UNCDF he served as UNDP's Director of Communications. (Where is NetAid money Mr. Morrison??)

Mr. Morrison has also worked for the Foreign Service of Canada, where his assignments included the Canadian Embassy in Havana and the Policy Staff in Ottawa, and for the World Economic Forum, where he was programme director for the annual summit in Davos, Switzerland, from 1995-1999.

Mr. Morrison holds an M. Phil from University of Oxford and a B.A. from Yale University. He is a Canadian citizen and speaks English, French and Spanish.

UN Whistleblower in Tokyo Raises Questions of Fraud, Cover-Up and Retaliation from Below

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

UNITED NATIONS, August 26 -- Objections against UN management raised by a high-profile Japanese journalist who headed the UN Information Center in Tokyo until earlier this year reveal a culture of retaliation and denial, alongside questions about the purpose and performance of these Information Centers and the UN's relations with major donor nations like Japan.

Charmine Koda was named the director of UNIC-Tokyo in April 2006. Later that year, she discovered systemic financial irregularities at the Center, including the use of falsified invoices to pay for services not yet rendered. She blew the whistle on these irregularities, first to the Department of Public Information which oversees the Information Centers, then when nothing was done, to the Office of Internal Oversight Services. In the resulting audit, Ms. Koda's own management style came under review, and she was given a series of short-term contract renewals and stripped of various of her powers at the Center.

Ms. Koda filed a harassment complaint against DPI's then number-two official in March 2008, heretofore not reported in the English language press. When Ms. Koda moved to schedule a press conference in Tokyo, DPI's top official Kiyotaka Akasaka in turn summoned some of the UN press corps to his office for a counter-briefing. Only representatives of the Japanese press were invited, an incongruity Inner City Press noted soon thereafter. (Click here for that May 21, 2008 article.)

After questions from Inner City Press, last week finally some answers were provided. Two individuals who requested to be identified only as "UN officials knowledgeable about the case" spoke with Inner City Press for an hour. They emphasized their argument that Ms. Koda cannot be considered a whistleblower, since "it was her job to report what she saw." They stressed that complaints were filed about Ms. Koda by six of the seven staffers of UNIC-Tokyo "and even the interns." They said that the money the UN had spent arranging for management training for Ms. Koda could have been spent on substantive programs in other UNICs.


They could not directly explain, however, why if in their view Ms. Koda was such a bad manager, she had been given the management job in the first place. They said that the selection of UNIC directors is vetted by the host governments, particularly in cases like the Tokyo Center where the host government provides most of the funding for the Center's work. So does a government's view come into play even earlier in the selection process? The two UN official acknowledged that it does.


How this plays out in the UN Information Centers in Sudan, Zimbabwe and Myanmar will be the subject for future Inner City Press articles. As related to Ms. Koda, the two officials repeated sought to portray the UN as the victim, and Ms. Koda as "not a whistleblower." Inner City Press disagrees, for the reasons summarized below.

When Ms. Koda finally left the UNIC in June 2008, she wrote a lengthy expose of her time at the UN. This appeared in the Japanese magazine Bungeishunju and has yet to appear in English. Inner City Press has reviewed a 23-page translation of the article. DPI's attempts to limit it responses to the Japanese-language press, and to claim that Ms. Koda is not and cannot be a whistleblower, are now more understandable, as Ms. Koda's critique is comprehensive -- and she names names.

To set the stage, Ms. Koda describes UNIC-Tokyo as

"a small office made up of the Director and 7 staff members, and the Directors have been senior level staff hired by the UN Headquarters and were changed approximately every 2 or 3 years ever since it was founded. In the beginning, foreign nationals were appointed, but in recent years, the position was assumed by Japanese. The first was Mr. Hatsuhisa Takashima (2000 ~ 2002, from NHK), next was Mr. Akio Nomura (2003 ~ 2005, from Asahi Shimbun), and the third Japanese Director was myself."

To this we can add that the Government of Japan's role in the selection of directors, and the use of Japanese taxpayers' funds for the work of the Center, making even more significant the reports of financial irregularities. As stated by Ms. Koda

"The contents of these financial irregularities were later summarized briefly in the report (dated March 11, 2008) of the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) audit. In December 2005, during the time of the former Director, the Center had 3 companies produce fictitious invoices and remitted a total of 3,130,000 yen... According to the explanation of the staff, they were 'pre-payments' that were intended to be consumed in the following fiscal year (the end of the fiscal budget year is December), and it is said that this practice had been prevalent since 2000. The audit report states that this is against UN financial rules and is requesting that 'appropriate measures' be taken against the concerned staff. The signatures of the former Director and the administrative assistant remain clearly on the fictitious vouchers. And fictitious reporting was being done to the UN Headquarters... I immediately reported all to Director [Paula] Refolo at the Department of Public Information."

But the UN's focus soon turned on Ms. Koda herself. As another UN system whistleblower has phrased it to Inner City Press, "the UN always shoots the messenger." The twist in this case is that, at least on its face, the retaliation was from below. Long-time UNIC staff members who were there are the time of the financial irregularities sent complaints to the UN in New York. Specifically, according to Ms. Koda, six staff members

"sent a letter to Director Refolo accusing me of 'power harassment' and 'misbehavior as International Civil Servant.' (One staff member opposed this kind of action and did not sign the letter.) Letters in support of the accusations addressed to Under-Secretary-General [Shashi] Tharoor by the two former Directors, Mr. Takashima and Mr. Nomura, and a letter by 2 interns addressed to the Secretary-General were also attached... the Department of Public Information took them up at face value, incorporated their arguments one-sidedly, wrote a report pursuing my responsibility, and took the measure to not allow me to refute."

An official the Japanese Foreign Ministry consulted by Inner City Press for this story stated that "we are keen" on getting to the bottom of the financial improprieties at UNIC-Tokyo "since the money is that of the Japanese taxpayers," and that Ms. Koda as well as the UNIC-Tokyo staff should be treated fairly during these reviews. A senior Japanese official expressed support for Ms. Koda. But not enough, apparently, to protect her from retaliation, at least for now. Following this report, Ms. Koda says,

"Refolo sent me an email telling me, 'It has been decided that staff A will do the staff members' PAS evaluation this year.' She was going to rob me of what was close to the only authority I had as the Director and hand it over to A. This will be equivalent to DPI’s recognition of staff A as the virtual Director. When I wrote back to that effect, Ms Refolo responded, 'It is a one- time measure which is necessary... and is being taken mainly as a way to protect you, given that even your most objective evaluation could be perceived by staff as retaliation.'"

The irony appears lost on DPI -- they retaliated by stripping Ms. Koda, who had complained of financial impropriety, of her responsibilities, ostensibly so that she would not be charged with retaliation. Ms. Koda continues that in early 2008

"in Bangkok, a meeting among Directors of UNICs in Asian countries was held and USG Akasaka, Director Refolo and I were there on site. That morning, when I met USG Akasaka at the hotel restaurant and offered him to join me, he asked, 'Have you seen the OIOS draft report?' When I answered, 'Not yet,' he told me to get a copy from Director Refolo. That evening, as she was leaving to go out for dinner, I somehow managed to stop her and receive a copy. I felt my blood freeze. It wrote the problem of staff management as top priority, and by quoting the contents of the staff’s allegations and the Panel report, it recommended my reassignment. Procurement issues such as financial irregularities were placed in the back inconspicuously."

Inner City Press has asked OIOS' Inga Britt Ahlenius about among other things OIOS' role in the matter, including the allegation by some of the use of OIOS as a part of retaliation, but Ms. Ahlenius has not responded. Hours later a message arrived, that Ms. Ahlenius is on "annual leave" extending from July 28 through September 15. But the questions asked cannot wait that long. Ms. Koda, for the record, says she keeps an open mind. She concludes

"Inside the United Nations, the reputation of the Department of Public Information of its heavy-handed attitude is being talked about. Also from subordinate organizations of other area discontent towards the ways of Director Refolo is being heard. However, as long as the issue is discussed and dealt with only inside the closed environment of the organization called the UN, a fundamental solution to this kind of problem can hardly be expected. I have decided to resign from my post and expose the problem to public review. I would like to express my gratitude to all the people for their trust and support in my work at the UN, and at the same time, I wish to apologize from my heart for not being able to fulfill it. I am still a believer in the principles and the meaningfulness of the activities of the United Nations. To contribute my humble part to the reform of that United Nations, I am determined to fight all the way."

In light of the repeated argument of the two "UN officials" provided by DPI that Ms. Koda cannot be considered a whistleblower since it was her duty to report improprieties, Inner City Press asked the Washington-based Government Accountability Project (GAP) for comment. In response, Tom Devine, GAP's legal director, said that "there's not even a syllable in the UN policy that provides an opening for that loophole. It's entirely a bureaucratic creation to avoid the approved U.N. rules on whistleblower rights."

Inner City Press wants to cover more of the UN DPI's side. The initial block was DPI's decision to limit its story-telling to the Japanese media. Now, an outgoing difficulty is the unwillingness of DPI to tell any part of its story on the record and for attribution. As Ms. Koda asks, how then are they the Department of PUBLIC Information?" Perhaps DPI is in a difficult position. But how would one know? To be continued.

Thursday, August 21, 2008

COMMENT: How Much Discretion? U.N.’s Anti-Poverty Program Wants Unlimited Spending Power

Um, On First Glance, I Vote Not Only “No,” But “HELL NO!“

Especially when you get facts like these:
  • The United Nations Development Program, the U.N.’s anti-poverty agency, which systematically ignored its own financial rules and regulations while funneling millions of dollars to North Korea, wants to give its chief operating officer the right to make out discretionary checks of unlimited amounts, without normal budgetary approval.
  • That’s up from the current limit of $50,000 which can be dispersed without regulatory oversight.
  • UNDP argues that the new ability to write such checks without normal authorization would only bring its discretionary powers into line with those currently exercised by other U.N. programs, like UNICEF and the World Food Program (WFP).
  • The problem is that at the Rome-based WFP, the use of the same unlimited discretionary authority to pay off job-eliminated contract employees was condemned just last year as a $90 million abuse of authority and a violation both of U.N. payment rules for contractors, and of fairness to longer-term employees.
  • The condemnation was issued by the only budget oversight committee that includes the entire membership of the U.N. It was ignored both by WFP bureaucrats and by the WFP’s 36-nation governing executive board.
  • UNDP’s desire to have the same unlimited discretionary power for its No. 2 bureaucrat, Associate Administrator Ad Melkert, is contained in support documents for the next meeting of its own, similarly-sized executive board, which meets in New York City from September 8 to 12.
  • The discretionary money is known in technical parlance as “ex gratia” funds, which UNDP describes as “payments which are made where there is no legal liability to UNDP, but the moral obligation justifies making such payments, which are in the interest of UNDP.” The question of what defines that interest is left to top administrators to decide.
  • The whole article is filled with examples of UN malfeasance or potential malfeasance, which - trust me! - is just as bad, from what I read.

Not only “No!” but “HELL NO!”

COMMENT ON: How Much Discretion? U.N.’s Anti-Poverty Program Wants Unlimited Spending Power

Economic globalization at it’s worst!

Along with it’s other countless reprehensible actions and disgraceful behavior, can we really expect the United Nitwits to handle our (The United States Taxpayers ) moneys correctly.

Beware of this Bipartisan bill:

A nice-sounding bill called the “Global Poverty Act,” sponsored by Democratic presidential candidate and Senator Barack Obama could result in the imposition of a global tax on the United States makes levels of U.S. foreign aid spending subservient to the dictates of the United Nations.

The legislation would commit the U.S. to spending 0.7 percent of gross national product on foreign aid, which amounts to a phenomenal 13-year total of $845 billion over and above what the U.S. already spends.”

The bill, called the Global Poverty Act, is the type of legislation, “We can – and must – make … a priority,” said Obama

It would demand that the president develop “and implement” a policy to “cut extreme global poverty in half by 2015 through aid, trade, debt relief” and other programs…

Obama wants us to support the world. I wonder how they intend to eliminate poverty. Most of the money always winds up in some dictator hands and in the U.N. coffers.” Just check out Kofi Annan’s family bank account.

What the U.S. Pays the U.N. Already

US contributions to UN Regular Budget

The United States has the maximum assessed contribution to the UN regular budget — 22%. In 2005 the assessed amount is $439,611,612. The minimum assessed contribution is 0.001%. The scale of assessments for each UN member for the required contributions to the regular budget is determined every 3 years on the basis of Gross National Product (GNP).

Only nine countries (starting with the largest contributor: United States, Japan, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Italy, Canada, Spain, China) contribute 75% of the entire regular budget. Cuba, which accounts for much of the behavior of the UN Human Rights Commission and its Sub-Commission, contributes .043% of the regular budget. Oil-rich Saudi Arabia contributes .713%.

UN members also make voluntary contributions to UN specialized agencies and subsidiary organizations. The administrative costs of such bodies, though, are met from the regular budget.

In addition to their contributions to the UN regular budget, member states contribute to the peacekeeping operations budget and the cost of international courts and tribunals. The level of these contributions is based on their assessed contributions to the regular budget plus variations which take account of permanent membership on the Security Council.

UN members also make voluntary contributions to UN specialized agencies and subsidiary organizations. The administrative costs of such bodies, though, are met from the regular budget.

U.S. contributions to the UN in 2005 totaled: $5,327,276,000.
(Regular budget, extra budgetary contributions, in-kind contributions)

The fact is that if you just keep throwing people fish, the fish pile up and rot!

Kimlik olarak Adalet

Cumartesi günkü yazımda Doç. Burhanettin Duran'ın makalesine atfen Adalet kavramının AK Parti'nin özgün bir kimlik iddiasını kanıtlayabileceği son derece geniş bir siyaset alanını işaret ettiğinden bahsetmiştim. Ancak partinin bu konudaki anlayışını sergileme veya ifade etme konusunda yeterince istekli göründüğü söylenemez. İsminde “adalet” sözcüğü bulunan bir iktidar partisinin, parti programındaki bir-iki sayfalık tanıtımın dışında, şu ana kadar kavramın içeriği, felsefesi, sorunları üzerine kayda değer bir söylemde bulunmamış olması biraz izaha muhtaç değil mi? Kanaatimce, “muhafazakâr demokrasi” gibi partiye sonradan yapıştırılan bir kimlik üzerine yapılan sempozyumdan veya söylemlerden daha fazlasını hak ediyor adalet kavramı.

Gerçekten de altı yıldır iktidarda bulunan yedi yaşındaki partinin kimliğini tanımlamak üzere kendine seçtiği ismin kalkınma ayağında sergilediği performans konusunda selef hükümetlere ve muhaliflerine nazaran ciddi bir fark ortaya koymuş olduğu açık. Yine de ekonominin yönetimi konusunda ortaya koyduğu fark bir siyasi partinin ortaya koyması beklenen farktan ziyade bir teknik kadronun teknik becerisi olarak da değerlendirilebilecek bir konudur.

Siyaset partilerle yapılır ve partiler zaten liberal (teorinin değilse bile) ideolojinin baskısı altında bir fark ortaya koyamadıkları ekonomik alanda sadece daha iyi performans iddialarıyla var olmaya çalışıyorlar. Oysa parti varlığı bu farktan ötesini gerektirir. Daha iyi kalkınma iddiası taşımakla bir parti kimliği tebarüz ettirilmez. Parti kimliği ancak dünyaya karşı daha farklı bir duruşla, farklı epistemolojik kaynaklardan beslenmeyle ifade edilir.

Herkesin kabul ettiği bir gerçektir ki, 2002 yılına kadar Ecevit hükümetince Kemal Derviş yönetiminde izlenen ekonomik politika teorik olarak AK Parti'nin sonradan uyguladığıyla aynıydı. Ancak yine de aynı programın daha mükemmeli bile olsa o yönetimle başarıya ulaşma şansı hiç yoktu. Çünkü siyaset sadece teoride bazı programların uygulanması değil, bunları kimin uyguladığı, nasıl bir niyet ve yaklaşımla uyguladığı da büyük bir fark ortaya koyuyor.

Siyaset tek taraflı işleyen bir süreç değil, onun bir de yönetilenler ayağı vardır ki, onlar nezdinde bir güven ve rıza tesis edilmedikçe ne kadar mükemmel olursa olsun, hiçbir ekonomik veya siyasi programın uygulanma şansı yoktur.

AK Parti'nin kimliği içinde “Adalet” ve “Kalkınma” unsurlarının çok güçlü bir dengesi olduğunda da kuşku yok. Adalet unsuru tam da parti kimliğinin kitlelerce bir sözleşme esası gibi görüldüğü ve arkasından bu partinin kalkınma programının veya pratiklerinin tanınmasını temin eden bir diyalog süreci gibi çalışıyor.

Ancak bu diyalogun AK Parti'ye sınırsız bir kredi açmış olduğunu düşünmemek gerekiyor. Partinin kalkınma programına adalet sözleşmesi çerçevesinde tanınan prim başarısız bir ekonomi politikası, adil olmayan bir dağılım, yolsuzluk ve yozlaşma durumunda tıkanma sürecine girer.

Türk siyasi hayatında Adalet bir kavram, değer ve siyasi kimlik olarak Adnan Menderes'e ve Demokrat Parti'ye karşı işlenmiş büyük zulmü de ima eden bir zemine dayanarak Adalet Partisi tarafından kullanılmıştır. Ancak kurulduktan hemen sonra partinin başına geçen Süleyman Demirel'in siyaset tarzı adalet kavramının hiç bir adalet vaadi olmayan içi boş bir kavrama dönüşmesine hizmet etti. Sağ muhafazakâr iktidarlar döneminde adalet kavramı kurulu eşitsizliklerin tanrı'nın bir kaderi gibi görüldüğü ve bu haliyle yeterince adil addedilerek meşrulaştırıldığı bir ideolojinin hizmetine koşuldu. O kadar ki süreç Muğla Üniversitesinden Dr. Necdet Subaşı'nın Adalet Sempozyumu'nda kaydettiği gibi tam bir “adalet kaybı” ile ifade edilebilecek bir noktaya geldi.

Toplum hayatının merkezinde duran bir değer ve standart olarak adaletin kaybı bir toplumun dirlik ve düzeninin de en büyük tehdididir. Çünkü çok iyi bildiğimiz gibi adalet mülkün temelidir. Adalet kaybı mülkün temellükünde sadece gücü ve marifeti yetenin hükmünü geçerli kılan bir düzen tesis eder. Ekonomik, kültürel ve siyasal bölüşüm konusunda bir türlü o ortak standardı yaratamıyor oluşumuz da bununla ilgilidir. Adalet kaybını telafi edecek bir farkı ortaya koyabilecek bir kurucu siyaset oluşamıyor.

Ak Parti'nin bu kurucu siyaseti üstlenme noktasına yaklaşmış olduğu bir ölçüde doğrudur. Ekonomi alanındaki başarısını bile adalet anlayışı veya pratiği konusunda toplumun önemli kesimleriyle olan sözleşmesine şimdiye kadar sadık kaldığını göstermesine borçludur. Bu adalet duygusundaki bir zedelenme uygulayacağı ekonomik programı da güvenilmezleştirir, işlemez hale getirir.

Fehmi Koru'nun dünkü yazısında isabetle belirttiği gibi AK Parti'yi bekleyen en büyük tehlike bundan sonra herhangi bir kapatılma davası değil yolsuzluk ve yozlaşma görüntüleridir ki bunlar sadece AK Parti'ye değil toplumdaki adalet duygusuna da büyük bir darbe vurur.

Tabii ki CHP'nin bir iftira potansiyeli her zaman mevcuttur. Ama iftira ihtimalinin varlığı sadece bu iddialara dayanarak yargısız infazı engellemelidir. Yoksa bu iddiaların tam bir şeffaflıkla irdelenmesini ve halkta güçlü bir adalet duygusunu besleyen fırsatlara dönüştürülmesini engellememelidir. Bunun için CHP'ye teşekkür bile edilmelidir.

Kötü niyetle bile olsa varlığı ve takibi, toplumda AK Parti'nin de iddiası olan adalet değerinin güçlenmesine, adalet kaybının telafisine hizmet edecektir.

Derviş durup dururken yasayı yumuşattı

GEÇMİŞTE limit aşımı yaşayan ve banka kaynaklarını kendi grup şirketlerine kullandırdığı için Fon’a geçen bankalar olmasına rağmen, bu uygulamadan Aydın Doğan’ın bankası için vazgeçildi. Çünkü başta Mesut Yılmaz, Ankara bürokrasisi Aydın Bey’i çok seviyordu. O dönem yasal limitlerin üzerine çıkan bankalara el konulmadı. 2002 yılında BDDK’nın bankalara bakış açısındaki değişime dikkat çekerek şu yorumu yapmak mümkün: Geçmişte bazı limitler vardı ama yüzde 25 limiti dönemin Ekonomi Bakanı Kemal Derviş getirdi. Eğer bu limit getirilmemiş ve yeni bir yumuşama havası yaratılmamış olsaydı pek çok bankanın daha Fon’a alınması gerekiyordu. Ancak BDDK limiti aşan bankalara ‘7 yıl içinde yasal limit altına ineceksiniz’ uyarısı yaptı. Bunun üzerine bankalar gereğini yapmaya başladı. 11 Ocak 2002 tarihinde, Derviş şu açıklamayı yaptı: Geçmişte yüzde 25 sınırı yoktu. Bankalara diyoruz ki bu kredileri 7 yılda temizleyin... Ortağına kredi vermek suç değil ama batık bir ortağa kredi verip bunu canlıymış gibi göstermek suç. Bu bankacılık kriterleri içinde olduysa, suç değil.

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

How Much Discretion? U.N.'s Anti-Poverty Program Wants Unlimited Spending Power

FOXNEWS

The United Nations Development Program, the U.N.’s anti-poverty agency, which systematically ignored its own financial rules and regulations while funneling millions of dollars to North Korea, wants to give its chief operating officer the right to make out discretionary checks of unlimited amounts, without normal budgetary approval.

That’s up from the current limit of $50,000 which can be dispersed without regulatory oversight.

UNDP argues that the new ability to write such checks without normal authorization would only bring its discretionary powers into line with those currently exercised by other U.N. programs, like UNICEF and the World Food Program (WFP).

The problem is that at the Rome-based WFP, the use of the same unlimited discretionary authority to pay off job-eliminated contract employees was condemned just last year as a $90 million abuse of authority and a violation both of U.N. payment rules for contractors, and of fairness to longer-term employees.

The condemnation was issued by the only budget oversight committee that includes the entire membership of the U.N. It was ignored both by WFP bureaucrats and by the WFP’s 36-nation governing executive board.

UNDP’s desire to have the same unlimited discretionary power for its No. 2 bureaucrat, Associate Administrator Ad Melkert, is contained in support documents for the next meeting of its own, similarly-sized executive board, which meets in New York City from September 8 to 12.

The discretionary money is known in technical parlance as “ex gratia” funds, which UNDP describes as “payments which are made where there is no legal liability to UNDP, but the moral obligation justifies making such payments, which are in the interest of UNDP.” The question of what defines that interest is left to top administrators to decide.

• Click here to see the UNDP submission on ex gratia payments.

The case UNDP cites in asking for the approval for sweeping new check-writing powers is humanitarian: payments to families of staffers killed in the bombing of the U.N.’s headquarters in Algiers last December. In all, 17 U.N. employees were killed in the blast, including seven affiliated with UNDP.

According to the submission, UNDP says it was unable to make “ex gratia” payments to some of the Algiers victims’ families due to the current $50,000 limit. “UNDP should be able to show compassion when addressing such cases,” the submission argues.

(Although UNDP does not say so in the papers it has presented to its executive board, the organization’s insurance policy provides only $180,000 in death benefits for full time staffers and $80,000 for local consultants.)

Few would disagree with the impulse to compensate victims of such a tragedy. But the UNDP document does not state why an unlimited spending power is appropriate, even under those circumstances.

Nor does it state that the same discretionary spending power could also be used in a wide variety of other circumstances. Among them: settling lawsuits by aggrieved contractors or employees without resorting to U.N. arbitration, or a variety of other legal cases where misdeeds or mismanagement might be attributed, rightly or wrongly, to management, and where management might prefer to avoid seeing the claim become public.

The possibility of just such liabilities was revealed in a confidential UNDP draft audit of its own procurement operations, obtained by FOX News last May, which described the operation as awash in shoddy paperwork and faulty bidding processes, and lacking the expertise to evaluate its most expensive technology purchases, while procurement ballooned to more than $2.6 billion.

The same document described the organization as afflicted with “apparent conflict of interest” at the top procurement levels, where the people charged with vetting the process for flaws were also members of the procurement staff.

• Click here to see the draft audit.

Another circumstance where ex gratia payments can be used, apparently, is the funding of unauthorized severance packages to contract U.N. employees who are not entitled to such payments under U.N. rules and regulations.

Just such payments were examined and condemned at length little more than a year ago, in documents submitted to the World Food Program’s executive board by the U.N.’s Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ), a body made up of representatives of all U.N. nation states.

The ACABQ offers opinions on U.N. financial matters on behalf of the entire General Assembly, while each U.N. program’s executive board is made up of a much smaller number of nations.

In a scathing review of one aspect of the World Food Program’s ex gratia spending, the ACABQ noted that the emergency food aid provider had used its discretionary power to make unauthorized severance payments to 417 contract employees, at sites ranging from Bangkok to Johannesburg to Panama.

The payments totaled “in the range of $90 million,” but the amount could have been larger; the ACABQ noted that the World Food Program itself had provided the numbers as estimates, but without “the benefit of actuarial evaluation,” meaning an outside cross-check.

Short-term U.N. employee contracts do not provide for severance or other benefits when they expire, the advisory committee noted. It observed that WFP management appeared to be using the “inappropriate” severance payments to compensate employees where short-term contracts had been repeatedly renewed to avoid handing out the security of longer-term arrangements.

The ACABQ noted that the unauthorized ex gratia payment practice “has significant system-wide implications” — meaning that other U.N. agencies or programs might imitate WFP’s alleged abuse of the ex gratia check-writing power.

The U.N. advisory committee urged that WFP’s executive board should “urgently” take up the issue of unauthorized ex gratia termination payments, and also look at WFP’s staffing policies.

Click here to see the ACABQ report.

That didn’t happen. Instead, the executive board “took note” of the advisory committee’s report and recommendations, a course of action that did not require doing anything the ACABQ suggested. It also “took note” of WFP management’s explanation that the huge unauthorized severance deal was part of a downsizing of the organization that was expected to end in 2009.

Whether the downsizing is still considered a good idea is an open question. In May, 2008, WFP suddenly declared that a “silent tsunami” of rising food prices had placed an additional 100 million people around the world at risk of starvation. WFP has since boosted its biennial budget request from donor nations to more than $6 billion.

The WFP severance debacle has already created one important precedent for the sprawling U.N. system of funds, programs and agencies: the argument that unlimited ex gratia spending power should exist for other parts of the U.N. system too.

That is the core argument in UNDP’s submission for its upcoming executive board meeting: “With the proposed amendment [to its rules], UNDP seeks to harmonize its approach with those of the other Funds and Programmes,” the organization declares.

UNDP also notes that yet another U.N. organization, the United Nations Population Fund — which shares an executive board with UNDP — is asking the same unlimited authority.

In its submission, UNDP refrains from saying that it will disclose the purposes to which it puts the ex gratia money it intends to spend. Instead, the organization says that it will put the 12-month total in its budget statement.

At the same time, UNDP assures its board that the cost of the change, though potentially unlimited, will be small. “UNDP does not expect the proposed change to result in a significant financial impact for UNDP over a period of time, given the low number of such payments that UNDP has had to address to date,” it says.

Why, then, is UNDP seeking an unlimited ceiling on the payments?

FOX News asked UNDP that question, among others, in a detailed query about the ex gratia request on August 12. UNDP acknowledged receipt of the questions but had provided no answers by the time this article was published.

FOX News also asked UNDP about another change in its rules surrounding the ex gratia payments, which has the effect of removing Secretary General Ban Ki-moon’s office from any role in the process.

Under UNDP’s previous rules, an opinion regarding the lack of a legal liability for any ex gratia payment was required of the Secretary General’s Office of Legal Affairs before the payment could be made. Under new rules, that authority will be transferred to UNDP’s Legal Support Office — which reports to the top executives who will hold the newly unlimited check-writing power.

Neither Ban’s office nor UNDP replied to FOX News' questions about the possibilities for conflict of interest in this arrangement, and about the possible loss of centralized oversight over the U.N. in the process.

In its submission, UNDP argues that the involvement of Ban’s lawyers in the ex gratia procedure is a “remnant” of days prior to 2000, when the UNDP’s legal support office didn’t exist.

But in 2004, UNDP got a $10,000 increase in its ex gratia limit without requesting removal of the “remnant” of outside involvement.

UNDP’s other argument for using its own hand-picked lawyers is — once again — that the World Food Program is already doing it.

Despite its frequent references to WFP, the UNDP submission contains no reference to the food program’s $90 million ex gratia boondoggle, which in the opinion of the General Assembly’s financial overseers had involved an abuse of that authority to paper over a major distortion of its hiring and firing practices.

And in fact, the ACABQ itself is making no reference to its previous dismay over WFP’s ex gratia caper. In its own submission to UNDP’s executive board, the ACABQ notes that UNDP’s internal and external auditors have raised no objection, and recommends that the board adopt UNDP’s unlimited funding request at its upcoming session.

George Russell is executive editor of FOX News.

Sunday, August 10, 2008

Eveline Herfkens: UNDP in desperation publish fake documents, contradicts itself

Today UNDP's spin machine continue to publish in their official blog ("for-the-record") , which is suppose to provide official responses to innacurate press reports related to the work of UNDP.

Eventhough UNDP desperation makes them to publish fake documentation, which is made post Herfkens story, the stupidity of UNDP's spokesperson to suck Dervis's and Melkert's ass goes this far. But it doesn't matter let's analyze it in detail and take it for granted that these are originals and UNDP is presenting them as truth.

  • UNDP FOR THE RECORD
    25 February, 2008 - On the housing subsidy received by Eveline Herfkens

    Press reports continue to circulate that Eveline Herfkens, Executive Coordinator of the Millennium Campaign, was paid $225,000 per year by the UN for part-time work. In fact, Ms. Herfken' signed a contract in November 2002 for a net annual salary of $134,331. She signed a new contract in November 2006 for a net annual salary of $144,968.01. In both cases the net annual salary was to be pro-rated in the case of part time work (meaning she would receive less than the figures indicated). To view Ms. Herfken's contracts please click here (
    2002 - 06) (2006 - 07).

The above shows how the ignorant UNDP's spokesperson and 14 other Public and Media Relation advisors are - Thanks to UNDP the attachment provided in the 2002-06 period shows that:

1.


  • UNDP STATEMENT: In fact, Ms. Herfken' signed a contract in November 2002 for a net annual salary of $134,331. She signed a new contract in November 2006 for a net annual salary of $144,968.01. In both cases the net annual salary was to be pro-rated in the case of part time work (meaning she would receive less than the figures indicated).

  • FACTS CONTRADICTING UNDP: In same document UNDP claim is original, the documents contradicts what UNDP states about pro-rating her salarry. If the salary was pro-rated, how come Herfkens was granted same full 30 days leave in 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005?? :

2.


  • UNDP STATEMENT: 9 January 2008 - Eveline Herfkens:

  • She worked on this contract for three years full time. In her fourth year (1 November 2005 – 31 October 2006), at her own request, she worked at 75 percent of full time, and her salary was pro-rated accordingly.
    Ms. Herfkens reached the maximum number of years allowed under an ALD contract (four years) on 1 November 2006. Upon completion of this contract, and on the basis of her performance record, the UNDP Office of Human Resources issued Ms. Herfkens what is called a “200 series fixed term appointment” at the equivalent level (L-7 step 6), for a period of one year, effective 1 November 2006. The contract was again pro-rated at Ms. Herfken’s request, this time at 90 percent of full time.

  • FACTS CONTRADICTING UNDP:

  • While UNDP on 9th of January declared that Eveline's contract was prorated at 75% of full time (2005-06) and 90% of full time (2006-07), the document that UNDP published today say that Eveline Herfkens contract was of at 80% of full time for 2002-2006. Who should we believe???


3.


  • UNDP STATEMENT: UNDP's David Morrison as well as Eveline Herfkens have always maintained that she was never aware of the UNDP's rules on housing subsidy.

  • FACTS CONTRADICTING UNDP: In same document published by David Morrison, for 2002-2006, UNDP explicitely had an agreement with Eveline Herfkens on Housing.


4.

  • UNDP STATEMENT: Morrison has stated that Eveline Herfkens was a A5/4 (mid-level officer) during 2002-2006, and that on November 2006 she became L7/6 (senior director level). See both document published by UNDP.

  • FACTS CONTRADICTING UNDP: (a) how can an A5/4 (mid level officer) be nominated Assistant Secretary General ? (b) let's assume she was an A5/4 how did she made it to L7/6 working on a part-time basis ? Regular staff would have required 13.5 years to make it from A5/4 to L7/6. But this UNDP document produced and posted in UNDP Procurement Unit when they approved Herfkens contract in Sept 2007, totally contradicts all the above statements:



5.


  • UNDP STATEMENT: 9 January 2008 - As with all UN staff at the Assistant Secretary-General level, the appointment included business class travel and a UN gold grounds pass. A gold pass facilitates visual recognition of the bearer as senior staff, and allows the individual to enter the UN Secretariat by the Delegates Entrance.

  • FACTS CONTRADICTING UNDP: How can UNDP claim she was an ASG when the contract UNDP published today for the period 2002-2006 was at A5/4 (mid level officer)? In no where in the that contracts is written that Herfkens is an ASG. Who issued the GOLD pass to Herfkens with a contract that states she is an A5/4?


Where is NETAID money David Morrison - or did you transfer them at UNCDF?

Congrats' David Morrison - are you gone do the same with UNCDF as you did with NetAid? Go for it David - its all microfinance, is easy-money, is what you do best.

How can you be the public face of UNCDF Mr. Morrison ?

Your gross-miss management, leadership ignorance and corrupt behaviour has led to UNDP loosing 45 Million dollars in tax-payers funds for this MEGA-FAILURE called NetAid.

How many poor people did NetAid help to come out of poverty under your leadership ? How many will UNCDF get out of poverty under your leadership Mr. Morrison?

And now you are a D2 ? Since when ? Have you seen Personnel Form ? One thing is sure Mr. Morrison, you know where the skeletons are burried in UNDP/NetAid. That's gives you an edge in negotiating upwards your salary and positions.

America Should Withdraw From The United Nations and Let It Collapse

by Robert W. Tracinski

If its handling of Iraq was a test of the United Nations, as President Bush has indicated, then the United Nations has clearly failed. But this should be no surprise, because yet another test of the United Nations--like yet another resolution giving Saddam Hussein "one more chance"--was completely unnecessary.

It is not that the United Nations has failed to show resolve or to live up to its charter. The problem is that the foundation of the United Nations is hopelessly corrupt.

By its very nature, the United Nations is directed by a consensus drawn upon a nonjudgmental mix of the good, the bad, and the ugly. The United Nations' Security Council, whose judgment on Iraq was supposed to bind the United States, is composed of America and a few brave allies--pitted against cynical France, resentful Russia, hostile China, indifferent Mexico, and such enlightened powers as Angola, Cameroon, and Guinea. And the Security Council is just a microcosm of the United Nations itself, which contains a few civilized nations, a few big dictatorships, and a teeming rabble of corrupt and oppressive Third World regimes.

The U.N. charter declares that any "peace-loving" nation is eligible for membership. Yet its founding members included the largest dictatorship of the time: the Soviet Union--a nation at war with its own people and in the process of subjugating half of Europe. In the half-century since, the United Nations' membership criteria have not gotten any more selective.

Yet the defenders of the United Nations tell us that cooperation with this unsavory crowd is essential for America's well-being. In 2001, Madeline Albright declared, "The role of the United Nations is ... vital, because no other institution combines a comprehensive mandate with *near universal representation*." Which means: the United Nations is valuable precisely because it fails to exclude the world's worst regimes. Kofi Annan recently offered his pitch for the importance of the United Nations: "Let us all recognize ... that the global interest is our national interest." Which means: the interests of Russia, France, and China are identical with America's interests. Tom Friedman of the *New York Times*, who has spent recent weeks hyperventilating about America going it alone, tells us: "the key to managing this complex, dangerous world ... is our ability to stand united and with others." Which means: we are doomed unless we are propped up by the support of Angola and Cameroon.

All of the arguments for why we need a coalition of hostile powers and tin-pot dictatorships make no sense. Instead, they are the reflection of a deeper philosophical premise that the U.N.'s apologists refuse to question. The real basis of the United Nations is global collectivism--the belief that America's judgment and interests must be subordinated to the collective opinion of the "world community." When the Times's Friedman, for example, calls the attack on Iraq a "war of choice" that should not be waged without a vast international consensus, what he means is that the choice of how America defends itself ought to made by France, Russia, Cameroon, Chile--by anyone and everyone *except* the United States.

Yes, there is a value to cooperating with other nations--but only with free nations who share a commitment to standing up against the threats of terrorism and dictatorship. Any time free nations agree to subordinate themselves to a collective consensus with hostile dictatorships, it is only the free nations that lose--and it is only the dictatorships that gain. Indeed, the dictatorships run the United Nations. Within weeks of September 11, terrorist-sponsor Syria was invited to chair the United Nations' Security Council. Iraq and Iran are scheduled to trade chairmanship of its disarmament committee, while Libya is set to chair its human rights commission.

This is the same pattern Ayn Rand identified decades ago, when she compared the United Nations to "a crime-fighting committee whose board of directors include[s] the leading gangsters of the community." Yet the only thing that can give such a commission any pretense at legitimacy is the participation of the city's upstanding citizens. Similarly, the only thing that gives the United Nations any legitimacy is America's cooperation: our might, our money, and our moral sanction.

America should not defy the United Nations on Iraq--we should do much more: we should withdraw from the United Nations altogether, letting that organization complete its collapse into a Third World debating society.

This would accomplish more than ending the latest round of diplomatic obstructionism. It would permanently unshackle U.S. foreign policy from the debilitating consensus of the corrupt collection of regimes who run the United Nations.

Obama's Global Poverty Act

by Edward Cline 

I rarely write commentary from anger, preferring a properly objective, psuedo-dispassionate approach to a subject deserving my attention. But news of the details, nature and scope of pending legislation in the U.S. Senate has caused me to make an exception to that rule.

As though Americans were not already burdened with:

• Extortionate and confiscatory taxes wherever they turn on virtually everything they earn, purchase, or do, from the local level on up to the federal level;
• Myriad regulations, controls and arbitrary rules that hamper or obstruct their productivity and their lives;
• Footing the endless bills of earmarked pork barrel projects at home in the amount of billions;
• Footing the bill in the amount of the billions for bottomless altruist and "humanitarian" pork barrel projects abroad;
• Footing the bill for an ever-expanding and ever more costly welfare state to subsidize the ill, the retired, the aged, the young, etc.
• Being held hostage by, say, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, and other hostile "oil-producing" countries, because our government has decided that snail darters, sea cows, and caribou have a greater right to live than have human beings;
• Paying more for food because mandated ethanol, which reports prove costs more in oil to produce than it "saves," in the gas they buy is taking more crop acreage out of production;


Congress is proposing, in Barack Obama's Global Poverty Act (S.2433, based on H.R. 1302, passed by the House September 25, 2007), that Americans be delivered into a state of indentured servitude as laborers for the United Nations. Perhaps "indentured servitude" is too kind a term, for as horrendous a condition as it is, there is usually a time limit to such servitude. Slavery would be the more accurate term in this instance, for what Congress is considering is servitude by Americans in perpetuity, in exchange for nothing but the privilege of laboring to "save" the world without thanks or reward, of filling the alleged needs of others, of performing unlimited "community service" for the offense of merely existing.

The not-so-peculiar and odd thing about H.R. 1302 was that it passed the House by voice vote. This is a stratagem adopted by legislators who fear that a bill is so outrageous that it is better that no record be kept of those who endorsed it. S.2433 was passed from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the same manner - by voice vote, without public hearings, to protect the identities of the guilty. It will probably be introduced to the Senate for a similar, anonymous voice vote -- by Harry Reid.

There is a double irony in this behavior. First, S.2433 is a bipartisan-sponsored bill. This underscores the fact that there is no fundamental difference between the Democratic and Republican Parties. Second, it is a piece of legislation which, given the altruist, collectivist premises behind it, one would have thought its creators should have trumpeted boastfully. But it is being handled by corrupt, guilty, fearful sneaks who haven't the courage of their own malice.

It reminds one of the scene in Atlas Shrugged, when James Taggart pulls down a window blind to obliterate the sight of the Washington Monument, just as he and government officials decide to decree a moratorium on brains. The proper American response to this evil and to its sponsors and supporters, in Congress and in the U.N., should be Dagny Taggart's when she learns of it: "I won't work as a slave or as a slave-driver." The bill's co-sponsor is Republican Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana, who sits on the Foreign Relations Committee. Its other co-sponsors are Senators Joseph Biden, Maria Cantwell, Chris Dodd, Dick Durbin, Russ Feingold, Dianne Feinstein, Charles Hagel, and Robert Mendez, all Democrats.

The bill was the subject of a strong editorial in Investor's Business Daily of February 28, 2008, "Obama's 0.7% Solution For Poverty Gets Pass from Senate Republicans." According to IBD, the bipartisan bill would require the president "to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the U.S. foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day."

The "Millennium Development Goal" refers to a United Nations declaration adopted by the U.N. Millennium Assembly and Summit in 2000 that calls for "the eradication of poverty" by "redistribution (of) wealth and land," cancellation of "the debts of developing countries" and "a fair distribution of the earth's resources." The IBD reports that "The Millennium project is monitored by Jeffrey D. Sachs, a Columbia University economist. In 2005 he presented then-U.N. secretary general Kofi Annan with a 3,000-page report based on the research of 265 so-called poverty specialists. "Sachs' document criticized the U.S. for giving only $16.5 billion a year in global anti-poverty aid. He argued that we should spend an additional $30 billion a year in order to reach the 0.7% target that the U.N. set for the U.S. in 2000....Sachs said that the only way to force the U.S. to commit that much
money is by a global tax, such as a tax on fossil fuels [oil, coal, natural gas]." The tax would be imposed not only on their production, but on their use, as well. Among other consequences, Americans would be impoverished for the purpose of reducing poverty abroad by 0.7 percent of the U.S.'s gross domestic product.

The Millennium declaration, reports IBD, also calls for a "currency transfer tax," a "tax on the rental value of land and natural resources," a "royalty on worldwide fossil energy production - oil, natural gas, coal," "fees for the commercial use of the oceans, fees for airplane use of the skies, fees for use of the electromagnetic spectrum, fees on foreign exchange transactions, and a tax on the carbon content of fuels."

The U.N. has assumed that it governs the earth, and wishes to penalize the most productive country on it for, well, being the most productive. If you never quite understood the nature and purpose of the "unification" and "global amity" plans described by Rand in Atlas Shrugged, this plan is its real world counterpart. In practical terms, the Millennium declaration is a prescription for not only perpetuating the "global poverty" it purports to eradicate, but also for impoverishing everyone, and for perpetuating that condition, as well.

But the Obama bill does more than allow the U.N. to tax American citizens. It is more than a matter of legality or illegality. For all practical purposes, it surrenders U.S. political sovereignty and independence to the U.N., an organization most of whose members are actively hostile to the U.S. Has the U.S. ever approved a tax on its citizens imposed by the U.N.? If it has, by what authority? Note that the wording of the Obama bill would require "the president to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy" -- which assumes that the office of president is just another mode of tyranny or arbitrary power, no different from the "presidency" of any random tin pot dictatorship or regime.

There is some logic to their premise. After all, the U.S. has withheld moral judgment of every one of those countries. Long, long ago, the U.S. should have won World War II, but not participated in the formation of an organization that admitted dictatorships and other tyrannical regimes for the purpose of "peace." Long ago, the U.S. should have withdrawn from that organization, and evicted its headquarters from this country's soil.

But it maintains its sanction of that organization, and has paid the price for it every since. Article III, Section 3 of the Constitution states: "Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort."

It would be interesting to see if this definition could be applied to the actions of Senators Obama, Lugar, Reid and the rest of the supporters of S. 2433 (and also the sponsors and supporters of H.R. 1302). Given that the U.N. has never disguised its hostility for the U.S., and that the enemies of the U.S. are legion in the U.N.'s membership, would passage of this bill by Congress constitute giving "aid and comfort" to our enemies, and "adhering" to their purposes and ends? For that is what the bill amounts to: giving our enemies the right to conquer, loot, and subjugate this country and its citizens.

Are we not already burdened by our own lords and masters of "social policy" and "redistribution" in Washington and in every state capital, without inviting the depredations of a clique of international thugs and looters? I urge those reading this to call or email his senator and urge that Barack Obama's S. 2433 be roundly defeated by a recorded roll call. If possible, communicate your outrage with the same moral indignation as Dagny Taggart's.


Edward Cline is a novelist who has written on the revolutionary war period. He is author of the Sparrowhawk series of novels set in England and Virginia in the Revolutionary period, the detective novel First Prize, the suspense novel Whisper the Guns, and of numerous published articles, book reviews and essays.

The Volcker Oil-for-Food Interim Reports: No Exoneration for U.N. Corruption

by Nile Gardiner

The U.N.-appointed Independent Inquiry Commit tee into the United Nations Oil-for-Food Programme (IIC) released its first Interim Report[1] on February 3, 2005, and its Second Interim Report[2] on March 29, 2005. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan set up the commit tee in April 2004, following calls for a Security Council– backed inquiry into the Oil-for-Food scandal.[3]

The U.N. response to the interim reports has been breathtaking in its arrogance.[4] Notably absent has been any sign of humility, contrition, or accountabil ity on the part of the Secretary-General and his senior aides. Indeed, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the leadership of the United Nations is still in denial with regard to the U.N.’s declining credibility.


Cartoon by Cox and Forkum

Within hours of its release, the Second Interim Report was greeted with cries of “exoneration” from Annan and his staff, after IIC Chairman Paul Volcker controversially found “no evidence that the selec tion of Cotecna in 1998 was subject to any affirma tive or improper influence of the Secretary-General in the bidding or selection process.”[5] When asked if he was planning to resign anytime soon, Annan dismissively responded, “Hell no!”[6]

A closer reading of both interim reports reveals serious leadership failures at the United Nations. The reports dramatically add to the growing pic ture of mismanagement, incompetence, and unac countability at the U.N. Contrary to Annan’s claims, the reports do not in any way vindicate him or the United Nations. Indeed, the destruction of thousands of critically important documents by the U.N. chief of staff and previously undisclosed meetings between Kofi Annan and Cotecna execu tives make a mockery of U.N. claims of vindication.

The U.S. Congress should respond to the reports by calling for a series of measures aimed at increas ing accountability and transparency at the United Nations and expanding the level of external over sight of the U.N. Congress should also launch a major investigation into the actions of former U.N. Chief of Staff Iqbal Riza and threaten to withhold U.S. assessed funding for the United Nations unless it fully cooperates with congressional investigations into the Oil-for-Food scandal. In addition, Con gress should increase the pressure on Kofi Annan to resign from his position as Secretary-General.


The Volcker Committee

The three-member Independent Inquiry Commit tee is chaired by former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker. The other two committee members are South African Justice Richard Goldstone and Swiss Professor of Criminal Law Mark Pieth. The commit tee’s 75-member staff, which includes three support personnel on loan from the U.N., operate on a $30 million budget drawn from the U.N. Oil-for-Food escrow account. The Volcker investigation is one of several major investigations into the U.N.’s manage ment of the Oil-for-Food Program. Investigations are being conducted by committees in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, as well as by the U.S. Department of Justice, Department of the Treasury, and Government Accountability Office.

The first Interim Report examined the initial 1996 procurement of the three U.N. contractors responsi ble for critical components of the Oil-for-Food Pro gram: inspection of oil exports (Saybolt Eastern Hemisphere BV), inspection of humanitarian goods imports (Lloyd’s Register Inspection Ltd.), and administration of the escrow account for the pro ceeds and payments within the program (Banque National de Paris). It also addressed allegations made against Benon Sevan, the executive director of the Office of the Iraq Program (OIP). The Second Interim Report examined the U.N.’s 1998 hiring of the Swiss company Cotecna Inspection S.A. to inspect humanitarian goods entering Iraq under the Oil-for-Food Program and the potential conflict of interest involving U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, whose son Kojo was employed by Cotecna.[7]


Emerging Issues of Concern for Congress

The interim reports raise a number of important issues that should be of major interest and concern to congressional investigators.

Issue #1: Document Shredding by Annan’s Chief of Staff

The most significant finding in the Second Interim Report is that Iqbal Riza, Kofi Annan’s chief of staff, authorized the shredding of thousands of U.N. documents between April and December 2004. Among these documents were the entire U.N. Chef de Cabinet chronological files for 1997, 1998, and 1999—many of which related to the Oil-for-Food Program.

Riza approved this destruction just 10 days after he had personally written to the heads of nine U.N.-related agencies that administered the Oil-for-Food Program in Northern Iraq, requesting that they “take all necessary steps to collect, preserve and secure all files, records and documents…relat ing to the Oil-for-Food Programme.”[8] The destruc tion continued for more than seven months after the Secretary-General’s June 1, 2004, order to U.N. staff members “not to destroy or remove any docu ments related to the Oil-for-Food programme that are in their possession or under their control, and to not instruct or allow anyone else to destroy or remove such documents.”[9]

Significantly, Kofi Annan announced the retire ment of Mr. Riza on January 15, 2005—the same day that Riza notified the Volcker Committee that he had destroyed the documents.[10] Riza was immedi ately replaced by Mark Malloch Brown, Administra tor of the U.N. Development Programme.

Riza was chief of staff from 1997 to 2004, almost the entire period of the Oil-for-Food Program’s operation, and undoubtedly possesses intricate knowledge of the U.N.’s management of it. He was a long-time colleague of Kofi Annan and served as Annan’s deputy in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations from 1993 to 1996.

The U.N. document destruction scandal raises a number of serious questions:

Under whose instruction did Iqbal Riza autho rize the destruction of U.N. documents?
To what extent was Kofi Annan himself aware of the shredding of the documents?
What role did Riza play in the U.N.’s manage ment of the Oil-for-Food Program?
How closely did Riza work with Benon Sevan, head of the Office of the Iraq Program, during his time as chief of staff?
Issue #2: Kofi Annan and His Dealings with Cotecna

The Second Interim Report gives the overall impression that the relationship between Kofi Annan and Cotecna officials was closer than previ ously known. Itstates that Kofi Annan met twice with Elie Massey, the owner of Cotecna, before the U.N. awarded it the Iraq inspection contract. Their first meeting was in February 1997 at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, and the second was in September 1998, arranged by his son Kojo. Significantly, when Kofi Annan was first interviewed by the Volcker Committee in Novem ber 2004, he denied meeting with Mr. Massey before the awarding of the Cotecna contract. He retracted that statement when he was re-inter­viewed in January 2005, after “a review of the com puter of the Secretary-General’s assistant, (where) the Committee found information reflecting that the Secretary-General had met with Elie Massey on two occasions prior to the award of the inspection contract to Cotecna.”[11] In addition, Annan met with Elie Massey once in Geneva in 1999, after Cotecna was awarded the U.N. contract.[12]

Kofi Annan’s meetings with Cotecna executives should be subjected to congressional scrutiny, as they raise major conflict-of-interest issues. Further more, Annan’s initial unwillingness to disclose these meetings to the Independent Inquiry Com mittee clearly indicates that Mr. Annan has not been acting in a completely transparent manner regarding the Oil-for-Food investigation. Annan should have publicly disclosed this information far earlier, but it was publicly revealed only after an investigation by the Financial Times and Italy’s Il Sole 24 Ore.

The relationship between Kofi Annan and Michael Wilson, Cotecna’s vice president for mar keting operations in Africa, is also of interest. The Volcker investigation reveals that the Secretary-General was “a long-standing friend of Mr. Wilson’s father, who had been Ghana’s ambassador to Swit zerland.” The report states:

Mr. Wilson also knows the Secretary-General well and, in the Ghanaian tradition, considers him like an “uncle.” Shortly after Kojo Annan graduated from university, the Secretary-General and Mr. Wilson spoke about the possibility of Kojo Annan working at Cotecna.[13]

Aside from his contacts with Michael Wilson and Elie Massey, the Volcker Committee also notes:

[Kofi Annan] already was familiar with Cotecna and its prior interest in doing business with the United Nations. In 1991, while he served as the United Nations Controller and Assistant Secretary-General for Programme Planning, Budget and Finance, he had been involved in negotiations with Iraq about initial proposals for an Oil-for-Food arrangement, and Cotecna had written to him, at that time, about its interests in the inspection services contract. He had passed the information on to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the department then in charge of the Iraq Programme.[14]

Issue #3: Kofi Annan’s Internal Inquiry into Kojo Annan and Cotecna

The Second Interim Report is highly critical of the U.N.’s own inquiry into the conflict of interest aris ing from Cotecna’s employment of Kojo Annan and his father’s position as Secretary-General. By all accounts, the U.N. inquiry was a farce, lasting for just one day. The inquiry was prompted by an arti cle published in The Sunday Telegraph on January 24, 1999, which revealed that the U.N. had awarded a major contract to a company (Cotecna) that employed the son of the Secretary-Gen eral.[15]At the same time, the Volcker Committee reports that, “Cotecna was embroiled in a criminal investigation involving allegations that it had made illegal payments for the benefit of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.”[16]

The U.N. inquiry was headed by Joseph Connor, Under-Secretary for Management, “who failed to take any action beyond the one-day inquiry that was conducted concerning the truth of the allega tions and their ongoing impact on the fitness of Cotecna to remain as a United Nations contrac tor.”[17] The report asserts that the inquiry was “inadequate” and that the Secretary-General should have referred the matter to the U.N. Office of Inter nal Oversight Services or the Office of Legal Affairs. The report concludes that “had there been such an investigation of these allegations, it is unlikely that Cotecna would have been awarded renewals of its contract with the United Nations.”[18] At the same time, the report states that “Kojo Annan actively participated in efforts by Cotecna to conceal the continuing relationship with him.”[19]

While the Volcker Committee shies away from drawing the conclusion, the Secretary-General’s failure to order a comprehensive, independent inquiry into this matter, given his own conflict of interest, clearly demonstrates at the very least a huge management failure and possibly a deliberate attempt by Annan to avoid a thorough investiga tion of serious charges.

Issue #4: Benon Sevan’s Role

Benon Sevan, a Cypriot, served as Under Secre tary-General and executive director of the U.N. Office of the Iraq Program from 1997 to 2004. A career U.N. employee since 1965, Benon Sevan has served in numerous U.N. positions, including Assistant Secretary-General and deputy head of the Department of Political Affairs. He has been the subject of intense scrutiny since being named in the report of U.S. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer, which alleges that he received a voucher for 13 mil lion barrels of oil from Saddam Hussein.

The IIC conducted an intensive investigation of Sevan’s conduct as OIP director, “a position of immense power and transnational responsibil ity.”[20] His job placed him in a position of constant communication with the Saddam Hussein regime and numerous U.N. member states, including all of the Security Council members. Sevan “supervised or coordinated the activities of hundreds of inter national staff in New York and overseas, including a considerably larger number of citizens of Iraq.”[21]

The report’s findings into Sevan’s conduct while head of the OIP are damning. The Committee con cluded that:

[Sevan] solicited and received on behalf of AMEP (African Middle East Petroleum Co Ltd Inc) several million barrels of allocations of oil from 1998 to 2001. As a result of Mr. Sevan’s conduct, AMEP’s revenue—net bank fees and surcharge payment—totaled approximately $1.5 million.

The IIC declared that Sevan’s actions “presented a grave and continuing conflict of interest, were eth ically improper, and seriously undermined the integrity of the United Nations.”[22]

The seriousness of the charges leveled against Sevan in the first Interim Report clearly merit crim inal prosecution, and the U.N.’s pledge to lift diplo matic immunity for Mr. Sevan is an important first step in the right direction.

Mr. Sevan should also be interviewed by con gressional investigators to shed more light on his illicit activities, as well as any criminal activity by members of his staff. Besides facing justice, Sevan could serve as a vitally important source of infor mation regarding attempts by the Saddam Hussein regime to influence decision-making at the U.N. and in the Security Council. Several key questions need to be answered:

How did Sevan manage to blatantly flout U.N. rules without raising any suspicions?
Why was there no oversight of Sevan’s man agement of the Office of the Iraq Program?
To what extent was Kofi Annan aware of cor rupt practices within the OIP?
Were other U.N. staff assisting Sevan with his illicit activities?
How extensive were the ties between Sevan and the Saddam Hussein regime?
How was Sevan picked to become OIP director?
Were allegations of corruption leveled against Sevan when he served in previous U.N. posi tions?
Issue #5: Boutros Boutros-Ghali, Banque Nationale de Paris, and the U.N. Escrow Account

The U.N. decision to appoint the French com pany Banque Nationale de Paris (BNP) to adminis ter the Oil-for-Food escrow account is the subject of intense scrutiny in the first Interim Report. Vast sums of money were handled through the escrow account. The Saddam Hussein regime sold more than $64.2 billion of oil under the Oil-for-Food Program between 1996 and 2003.[23] BNP was selected by then U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali, even though the decision did not conform to the requirement under U.N. financial rules to accept the “lowest acceptable bidder.”[24]

The report demonstrates that several banks were better placed to manage the Iraq escrow account on the basis of their higher credit quality (based on standard ratings by IBCA Limited of London): Union Bank of Switzerland, Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, Citibank, and Chase Manhattan.[25] The U.N. Treasury eventually opted for Credit Suisse as its first choice to run the escrow account, but BNP was awarded the contract.

Boutros-Ghali’s decision to select BNP over more qualified competitors should be the subject of con gressional scrutiny. The following questions need to be answered:

How much influence did Saddam Hussein wield over Boutros-Ghali’s final decision?
To what extent did the U.N. give the Iraqi regime a veto over the choice of a bank for the U.N. escrow account?
How close was the relationship between Boutros-Ghali and the Saddam Hussein regime?
What role did the French government play in the U.N. decision to opt for BNP?
What was the nature of the relationship between BNP and the Iraqi government, both before it won the escrow account and during the period when it administered the account?
Issue #6: The Secretive U.N. Iraq Steering Committee

The first Interim Report sheds some light on the powerful Iraq Steering Committee, created by Boutros-Ghali “to ensure the timely and effective implementation” of the Oil-for-Food Program and designed to report to the Secretary-General “on a regular basis.” It operated in a highly secretive manner and “did not keep official records or min utes of proceedings and determinations.” Signifi cantly, the U.N. archives are “devoid of records of the Steering Committee.”[26]

The Steering Committee was chaired by Chin maya Gharekhan, Under Secretary-General and Senior Adviser to the Secretary-General, and included five other high-level U.N. officials: Yakushi Akashi, Under Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs; Joseph E. Connor (an American), Under-Secretary-General for Administration and Manage ment; Hans Corell, Under Secretary-General for Legal Affairs; Marrack I. Goulding, Under Secretary-General for Political Affairs; and Yukio Takasu, Assis tant Secretary-General and Controller.[27]

There is a strong case to be made for members of the Iraq Steering Committee to testify before Con gress and to assist congressional investigators. The report leaves the impression that the Steering Com mittee was a powerful policy group surrounding the Secretary-General, operating without account ability or transparency and completely avoiding any form of scrutiny.

The Steering Committee is a symbol of the cul ture of secrecy and unaccountability that pervaded the U.N.’s handling of the Oil-for-Food Program. It is in the public interest that Congress investigate the operations of the Steering Committee.

Key Omissions from the Volcker Interim Reports

While the interim reports raise a number of important issues, there are some glaring omissions.

The Management Role of Kofi Annan. While the Volcker Committee went to considerable lengths to explore the relationship between Kofi Annan, Kojo Annan, and Cotecna, it makes very little attempt to assess Annan’s role as the official responsible for over all management of the Oil-for-Food Program. The IIC also fails to examine the role played by Iqbal Riza, Annan’s chief of staff, in running the Oil-for-Food Program—a striking omission considering that Mr. Riza shredded thousands of U.N. documents, many of which were related to the Oil-for-Food Program.

Given that Mr. Annan handpicked Benon Sevan to head the Oil-for-Food Program, it is also extremely surprising that the report fails to explore the background to Mr. Sevan’s appointment and his working relationship with the Secretary-General. Nor does the report at any time consider what the Secretary-General might have known about the program’s failings at various stages of its existence.

The Lack of U.N. Oversight of the Office of the Iraq Program. The first Interim Report makes no serious effort to explain why the Office of the Iraq Program did not receive significant scrutiny from the Office of Internal Oversight Services. It also makes no attempt to question why Secretary-General Annan did not keep an eye on the New York headquarters of the U.N.’s biggest humanitar ian operation. The strong friendship between Mr. Sevan and Mr. Annan must surely warrant investi gation as a possible factor behind this lack of over sight. Clearly, Annan either was asleep at the wheel and grossly negligent or deliberately ignored wide spread mismanagement and corruption.

The role of the U.N. Secretariat should also be questioned. After all, the report clearly states that “although the Security Council and its 661 Com mittee exercised combined supervisory and opera tional oversight of the Programme, the Secretariat of the United Nations administered its day-to-day operation.”[28] The IIC sheds no light whatsoever on the Secretariat’s involvement in overseeing the OIP.

Attempts by Saddam Hussein to Influence Security Council Members. The detailed allega tions made by Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector Charles Duelfer regarding Iraqi attempts to influ ence members of the Security Council to lift U.N. sanctions receive scant attention in the interim reports. The close ties between Russian and French politicians and the Iraqi regime and the huge French and Russian financial interests in pre-liber ation Iraq were almost certainly an important factor in influencing their governments to oppose Hus sein’s removal from power.

The Oil-for-Food Program and its elaborate sys tem of kickbacks and bribery was a major source of revenue for many European politicians and busi ness concerns, especially in Moscow. Congressional hearings on the financial, political, and military links between Moscow, Paris, and Baghdad should shed light on the tempestuous Security Council debates that preceded the war with Iraq and on the motives of key Security Council members in opposing regime change in Baghdad.

What Congress Should Do

Congress should respond to the interim reports by calling for a series of measures aimed at increas ing accountability and transparency at the United Nations in the wake of the Oil-for Food scandal, as well as ensuring effective oversight of future U.N. operations. Specifically, Congress should:

Increase pressure on Kofi Annan to resign.[29] From the massive failure of manage ment and leadership, it is increasingly clear that Kofi Annan is unfit for office. He has been surrounded by a constellation of corruption at the heart of the U.N. system, and it is incon ceivable that he was unaware of the pervasive problems afflicting the Oil-for-Food Program. As U.N. Secretary-General, Annan must be held accountable for the biggest scandal in U.N. history, as well as for a wave of other major scandals across the U.N. system, includ ing widespread abuses by U.N. peacekeepers in the Congo. Annan should step down in favor of an interim Secretary-General, specifi cally tasked with cleaning house, eliminating corruption, and implementing immediate institutional reform of the U.N. The interim Secretary-General should be someone of great stature and integrity. If Annan remains in power and completes his term of office, his successor will inherit a tarnished position, in effect a poisoned well.
Launch a major investigation into Iqbal Riza and the shredding of U.N. documents. The destruction of highly sensitive documents by Kofi Annan’s chief of staff is an obstruction of justice that demands congressional investiga tion. It gives the impression of a major cover-up at the very heart of the United Nations and casts a dark cloud over the Secretary-General’s credibility. It projects an image of impunity, arrogance, and unaccountability on the part of the leadership of the United Nations. Riza— who, like Benon Sevan, is retained on the U.N. payroll at an annual salary of $1—should be made available to congressional investigators and should explain his actions before Con gress. If it appears Riza is responsible for crim inal actions, his diplomatic immunity should be lifted to pave the way for prosecution.
Call for the U.N. to establish an independent archive facility to store U.N. docu ments. In light of the Riza shredding scandal, Congress should call for the U.N. to establish an independent archive facility to house copies of all major U.N. documents. The facility should be located on a separate site from the U.N. headquarters. Copies of significant U.N. documents and correspondence (for example, Chef de Cabinet and Secretariat files) should be deposited within a set period from time of production. Such a facility should be funded by cutting wasteful U.N. programs.
Call for the creation of an external body to oversee U.N. operations. The U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services lacks the tools, expertise, public confidence, and above all, the independence to conduct effective, transpar ent, and impartial investigations into allega tions of large-scale fraud and mismanagement within the United Nations. An external over sight body completely independent of the U.N. bureaucracy and staffed with non-U.N. offi cials (but backed by a Security Council man date) should be established to oversee major U.N. operations, including humanitarian pro grams and peacekeeping operations.
Call for the establishment of a U.S. over sight unit to monitor how American contri butions are spent by the U.N. The United States should set up its own U.N. oversight unit, answerable to Congress, specifically charged with monitoring the use of American contributions to U.N. peacekeeping and humanitarian operations. This should be funded by diverting part of the annual U.S. assessed contribution for the United Nations and could be located in the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.
Withhold U.S. assessed funding for the United Nations unless the U.N. fully cooper ates with congressional investigations into the Oil-For-Food scandal. The United States has been the United Nations’ biggest contribu tor since it was founded in 1945. In 2004, the U.S. contributed $360 million toward the U.N.’s routine operating expenses—22 percent of the U.N.’s regular annual operating budget and more than the combined contributions of France, Germany, China, Canada, and Russia. Congressional leaders should make it clear that Congress will withhold all of the U.S. assessed contribution until the United Nations has pro vided unlimited access to relevant documenta tion on the Oil-for-Food Program and the sworn testimony of U.N. officials. The withheld funds should be placed in an escrow account, with future disbursement contingent on satis factory resolution of these matters.
Insist that future inquiries into U.N. scan dals be fully independent. In the future, the Secretary-General should not be allowed to pick the investigation committee into a U.N. scandal and then pass it off as “independent.” Such inquiries will always be open to the pos­sibility of political interference and manipula tion by those being investigated. Congress should insist that future investigations into U.N. scandals be completely independent of the Secretary-General. Chairmen of such inquiries should also be asked to disclose, upon appointment, all potential conflicts of interest, whether business or political.
Invite Pierre Mouselli to testify before Con gress. Congressional investigators should exam ine the claims made by Pierre Mouselli, a French former business partner of Kojo Annan, who alleges that the Volcker Committee downgraded and ignored evidence damaging to Kofi Annan, which he provided. In addition, Mr. Mouselli should be invited to testify before Congress. Congress should also ask the Volcker Committee to clarify its refusal to take into account this evi dence. The Volcker investigation should be spe cifically asked if it has deliberately ignored critical evidence that could implicate the Secre tary-General.[30]
Insist that Paul Volcker present his final find ings to the Iraqi government. On conclusion of his investigation, Mr. Volcker should present his findings not only to the U.N. Secretary-General, but also to the people of Iraq, repre sented by the Iraqi government. Through no choice of their own, the Iraqi people are cur rently footing the bill for the Volcker investiga tion with money taken by the U.N. from the Oil-for-Food escrow account. If the Iraqi gov ernment is not satisfied with the investigation’s thoroughness, Congress should support Iraqi efforts to recover the $30 million cost of the Volcker investigation. If the U.N. refuses to reimburse the Iraqi people, Congress should withhold the exact amount from the U.S.-assessed contribution for the U.N. and divert the funds to the Iraqi treasury. It is only right that the United Nations—not the Iraqi victims of U.N. fraud, mismanagement, and corrup tion—bear the cost of a U.N.-appointed inves tigation into allegations of wrongdoing by U.N. officials.
Conclusion

It is highly disturbing that Kofi Annan has sought to downplay many of the damning findings contained in the Independent Inquiry Committee reports. In his press conference after the release of the Second Interim Report, Annan stated that “after so many distressing and untrue allegations have been made against me, this exoneration by the independent inquiry comes as a great relief.”[31]

The U.N.’s senior leadership has apparently not learned any lessons from the Oil-for-Food scandal. The elite ruling clique that surrounds Mr. Annan at the top of the United Nations continues to behave with impunity while projecting an air of superiority deeply resented by many rank-and-file U.N. employees. It is no coincidence that staff morale at the United Nations has hit an all-time low.

Increasingly, Mr. Annan appears to be using Paul Volcker as a shield to protect his own dwindling reputation. It is hard not to conclude that a more critical and neutral chairman would have drawn far harder-hitting conclusions from the mountain of damaging evidence. Despite his investigators pre senting an ugly tableau of incompetence, misman agement, corruption, and deception at the top of the United Nations, Mr. Volcker has shied away from significant, direct criticism of the Secretary-General and the United Nations as an institution.

In stark contrast to Mr. Volcker’s silence, the two other IIC members have openly criticized Annan’s claims of “exoneration.” Professor Pieth stated, “We did not exonerate Kofi Annan. We should not brush this off. A certain mea culpa would have been appropriate.”[32] Similarly, Judge Goldstone refuted the notion that the report cleared Annan of wrongdoing, describing Annan’s failure to apolo gize as “an opportunity lost.”[33]

Despite Mr. Volcker’s unwillingness to sharply criticize the Secretary-General, there is little doubt that Kofi Annan’s position at the helm of the United Nations is becoming increasingly untenable. The IIC reports give the overriding impression of an institution that is fundamentally broken and in dire need of major reform and new leadership. In addi tion, over the coming months, several congres sional inquiries into the U.N.’s management of the Oil-for-Food Program will release their findings, which could prove hugely damaging to Annan’s reputation. By no means is the Volcker investiga tion either the final or the definitive inquiry into the matter.

In order to begin restoring the credibility of the United Nations, Mr. Annan should step down. By remaining in office despite growing evidence of widespread U.N. failings, Annan sends a message of impunity, arrogance, and unaccountability on the part of the U.N. leadership. He is also setting a poor precedent for future U.N. leaders, who will be encouraged to believe they will not be held accountable for the organization’s failures. Annan is increasingly a “lame duck” Secretary-General who has become a severe liability to the U.N.’s credibility. Serious reform will be impossible as long as he remains in power.

The author is grateful to James Dean, Deputy Director, Foreign and Defense Policy, in the Government Relations Department at The Heritage Foundation, for his advice and suggestions. Heritage Foundation intern Nicole Collins assisted with research for this paper.