While George Soros certifies UNDP as top-10 most transparent in the world - @InnerCityPress's Matthew Lee publishes more audits on LOTFA - Afganistan

Click here to read this at InnerCityPress:  http://www.innercitypress.com/auditpad1undp100212.html

Afghan UN Audits Find Contracts on Blank Paper, Musical Mispayments 

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive

UNITED NATIONS, October 2 -- Since June Inner City Press has published a series of internal audits of irregularities in the UN Development Program's Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan. The UN's outgoing Afghanistan deputy Michael Keating told Inner City Press,"we need to be more explicit in acknowledging... the risks that are inevitably there with a program of this size and complexity and not try to hide those risks." Video here, from Minute 11:07.

 

   But now another troubling audit has come in from sources to Inner City Press, of UNDP's policy and advisory development Letters of Agreement in Afghanistan; two pages are being exclusively published today by Inner City Press. 

   The problems are myriad: money paid to the wrong Afghan ministry (in one case, to the Institute of Music instead of to the Ministry of Education); contracts on blank paper without letterhead at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; no oversight, no required audits. Click here for Page 1 of this audit; click here for Page 2.

  Back on September 20, Inner City Press asked the UN system's top envoy to Afghanistan Jan Kubis about the series of audits of the Law & Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan published by Inner City Press over the past three months; he said there will be a public accounting. Video here, from Minute 3:37.

   This is more than Inner City Press has received from UNDP, which has sent a few responses but no direct comment on the exclusively published leaked audits. 

   Inner City Press asked Kubis about a letter the European Union sent to Kubis about the scandal, which Inner City Press put online here.

  Kubis said that the EU states are more and more convinced that the necessary steps are being taken by UNDP. He said the auditing of LOTFA is going on, but a midterm review will give rise to general public information.  But when?

    Inner City Press exclusively published three more audits. In LOTFA "Observation 19," the auditors drily note:

"During the course of our physical verification of assets, we noted that some of the assets, which were appearing in Statement of Assets, were not physically present."

  This diplomatic "not physically present" phrase, if accepted, would have a good future on all manner of criminal defense. 

 

In Observation 18, the auditors state that "during the course of our audit we noted certain instances where purchase orders were not raised in respect of procurement of goods," including over $300,000 for the purchase of Toyota vehicles.

   Observation 17 "note[s] instances where evidences of required approvals by Special Procurement Commission were not available with the contracts" and "recommends that the provisions of the Afghanistan Procurement Law should be complied" with. Ya don't say.

  Beyond this UN system corruption, there is a more serious debate about the proposed spending on constructing a new electoral roll -- would it be done fairly for all groups and how much would it cost. This question could not be asked - Kubis had a flight to catch.

 On his way out he told Inner City Press that the electoral issue, and how the 19% budget cut to UNAMA is being (mis?) implemented, would still be issues when he comes to the UN next time. We aim to be here, and to ask. And now the UN Security Council is considering traveling to Afghanistan. Watch this site.

Click here to read this at InnerCityPress:  http://www.innercitypress.com/auditpad1undp100212.html

InnerCityPress: LOTFA Audit - Human Resources - Copies of Recruitment letter, Education certificates and Tazkira not in personnel files

Click here for this @InnerCityPress Exclusive

Manoj Basnyat: A story filled with mismanagement, staff resentment and ultimately financial corruption in Afghanistan

UNDP Bangladesh director quits following staff resentment

Submitted by admin4 on 11 April 2008 - 2:08pm
Muslim World News
By IANS

Dhaka : Manoj Basnyat, the UN Development Programme's (UNDP) country director to Bangladesh, has quit before the end of his tenure due to a vote of no-confidence from his staff after many of them were laid off.

"His departure comes hot on the heels of a vote of no confidence in him by his staff in a recent survey and several unofficial government complaints about his interference in development projects," The Daily Star newspaper said Friday.

The UNDP Global Staff Survey 2007 for Bangladesh obtained by the paper showed that "86 percent of international staff and 62 percent of local staff at UNDP Bangladesh had no confidence in their country director".

UN Resident Coordinator Renata Lok Dessallien told the paper that Basnyat was "simply being posted somewhere else because he is needed there".

The newspaper quoted unnamed sources to say that Bangladesh Foreign Adviser Iftekhar A. Chowdhury "informally discussed" the change of country director with Desallien during a meeting Monday.

A UNDP spokesperson said that the high disapproval rate for Basnyat was a direct result of a radical overhaul of the UNDP offices here, which included sacking or retrenchment of 45-50 percent of the staff.

The organisation undertook the massive changes after competency exams carried out by its New York headquarters found nearly half of the staff in Dhaka were not up to the mark, according to the spokesperson.

The laid-off staff, who had worked for the UNDP for more than five years, received golden handshakes.

Both the government and the UN, however, denied that Basnyat's departure was due to government pressure or the "survey fallout" within the UNDP.

Basnyat could not be contacted for comment.

Basnyat, currently on leave for three weeks, took up the post of country director of Bangladesh for UNDP in December 2006.

The UNDP spent $55 million in its development projects in Bangladesh last year.

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Did Helen Clark authorized the Manoj Basnyat's slush fund to pay cash bribes to Afghan Ministers that would favor UNDP initiatives ?

UNDP SCANDAL

Click here to read this article on Wall Street Journal page

U.N. Expands Its Probe Into Funding Oversight

By DION NISSENBAUM

WASHINGTON—The United Nations has expanded an internal examination into its largest global development program because of questions over the management of international aid funds in Afghanistan.

The U.N. Development Program's Afghanistan office used a recently established fund to hand out millions of dollars in donated money to Afghan ministries without proper oversight of how it was spent, according to a preliminary report by U.N. auditors.

In a majority of cases they examined, the auditors found "no evidence" that Afghan ministries receiving funds through the UNDP's so-called Policy Advisory and Development program spent the funds for the intended purpose. There were indications that ministry workers received excessive pay raises or double salaries, according to the report, which was completed in July and viewed by The Wall Street Journal.

The preliminary summary didn't include detailed allegations about the program, which was established to support special projects at Afghan ministries. But the questions it raised were echoed in recent months by several past and present UNDP employees who have alleged in interviews that the program was used to spread cash to win favor inside Afghan ministries for U.N. initiatives.
The U.N. said the document reflected initial findings that were undergoing further examination. In some cases, it said in a statement, further investigation determined that some of the concerns about misallocated funds and high pay raises were unfounded.

The program was created in 2009 under the UNDP's then-director in Afghanistan, Manoj Basnyat, a long-time U.N. official from Nepal. Soon after arriving in Kabul, Mr. Basnyat and the UNDP established the fund, which handed out about $1 million a year to Afghan ministries.

The U.N. hasn't accused Mr. Basnyat of wrongdoing, and he hasn't addressed any allegations publicly. The U.N. declined to make him available for an interview and said it couldn't comment on personnel matters. The U.N. said it encouraged anyone with allegations of wrongdoing to contact it directly and said it maintains a "zero tolerance" anticorruption policy.

The Kabul office is working to phase out the Policy Advisory and Development program in the wake of the auditing questions, a senior U.N. official there said.

"It is not a slush fund," said the official. "My feeling is that it is a project that was weak in terms of the planning and reporting."

The UNDP has been at the center of a multibillion dollar effort to reform the Afghan government and rebuild the battle-damaged country. In part, it is supposed to serve as a model to Afghan politicians of efficiency and transparency.

But the UNDP became the focus of scrutiny this year amid allegations—by U.N. workers as well as by an international monitoring group—of corruption at a fund it oversees, the Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan, a $1.4 billion pool financed by international donors to pay the salaries of the 150,000-member Afghan police.

This summer, the European Union blocked the release of $37 million in funds until the allegations are resolved. In June, the program removed five staff members, including the program's assistant director in Afghanistan. The U.N. didn't say why the workers were dismissed or put on administrative leave. The workers declined to comment or couldn't be reached.

U.N. investigators returned to Kabul over the weekend to continue their examination of the UNDP office in Afghanistan, U.N. officials said.

In April, Mr. Basnyat was replaced after more than three years as country director in Afghanistan by Alvaro Rodriguez, a longtime UNDP employee who had previously held the same position in Pakistan and Somalia. The switch took place under a routine U.N. assignment rotation and wasn't a result of the audit, according to U.N. officials. He is currently on assignment in New York, the U.N. said.

Last year, the UNDP presented Mr. Basnyat with its Julia V. Taft Award, given each year to its most outstanding country office.

—Nathan Hodge in Kabul Afghanistan, contributed to this article.

  Write to Dion Nissenbaum at dion.nissenbaum@wsj.com
 

A version of this article appeared September 11, 2012, on page A9 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: U.N. Expands Its Probe Into Funding Oversight.

Click here to read this article on Wall Street Journal page