In October 16, 2007 - UNDP's Assistant Secretary General for Africa - Mr. Gilbert Houngbo while trying to explain, during a UN Press Conference, UNDP's larger volume of CASH in Latin America , he stated that: - "the Latin figure - are larger because they include loans from the World Bank, managed by UNDP". (check Houngbo's press conference video here from minute 1.03.04)5 months later, today the President of the World Bank - Mr. Robert Zoellick, while attending in New York the meeting of "Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Africa Steering Group" - was asked the same question on UNDP's enormous CASH in Latin America and whether that was coming from the World Bank. Zoellick said that the explanation of UNDP's ASG for Africa Houngbo - doesn't strike him as right at all....!!!
Immediately after Zoellick, another high official of the World Bank, Mr. Ferid Belhaj - Special Representative of WB to the UN added even clearer, that he " doubted it" that the UNDP excuse to funding in Latin America was from the World Bank. Three young officials were accompanying the WB team, one of them said that: - UNDP's explanation was no sense since the World Bank had offices in almost each and every country in Latin America and would have been non-cost efficient for the Bank to give money to third parties for management.....it would have just increased the administrative costs (he said) and would have been unfair to recipient government whom are already paying for the soft loans they receive from the bank.
After all the above, every citizen have the right to raise questions like:
1) where does UNDP get the money for its programmes in Latin America?
2) how are these funds managed and are those trust funds or soft loans?
3) what is UNDP contribution to soft loan management in Latin America ?
4) what is UNDP's additional administrative cost added to the cost of loan disbursement and repay?
The above shows that UNDP not only have not changed, but continue to operate as a rogue organization, denying access to member states to its financial and audit records. But for how long ??
