Eveline Herfkens: The corrupt socialist dutch politician who stole money and run away with it - now UN Tribunal finds UNDP's actions on letting Herfkens go away unscathed -- as unlawful !

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#UNDT: Eveline Herfkens collected double allowances from her Government and the UN = no disciplinary action bit.ly/R8E2XO @undpwatch

21. The decision to dismiss the Applicant without termination indemnity or payment in lieu of notice was discriminatory, and therefore unlawful. The Respondent referred to a few cases in which UNDP allegedly dismissed staff members in situations similar to that of the Applicant. The Respondent failed, however, to provide full details of these cases so the Applicant is not in a position to compare these cases to the instant case. Even if in these cases the Respondent took a harsh line, this still fails to clarify why such a markedly different approach was taken in the case of Eveline Herfkens. 

22. In a letter dated 23 May 2008, Kemal Dervis wrote that during the period Eveline Herfkens was employed as a staff member by UNDP, the Government of the Netherlands provided her with financial benefits in the form of rent of a three room apartment in Manhattan, relocation from the Netherlands to New York in November 2002 and from New York to Maryland in January 2006, and a continuation of her enrolment with the Netherlands national pension scheme. 

23. Kemal Dervis further noted that UNDP had provided Eveline Herfkens with a copy of the applicable UN Staff Regulations and Rules relating to her appointment and that she had signed an acknowledgement of having received them. Despite this, UNDP found that:

Ms. Herfkens appear[ed] to have unknowingly breached the Staff Regulations, in good faith and without mal-intent. 

and that

Ms. Herfkens [would] remain an advocate in the global effort to achieve the MDGs, and [that UNDP would] count on her continued support in this effort. 

24. The Applicant submits that in contrast to Eveline Herfkens, she was a low level general service staff member, and that unlike Eveline Herfkens, she obtained no personal gain. In light of this, to excuse Eveline Herfkens, while dismissing the Applicant without termination indemnity or payment in lieu of notice, is discriminatory and unlawful. 

25. The Respondent cannot rely on the Applicant’s failure to comply with her obligations during the investigation when the Respondent failed first to comply with his. From the outset of the investigation, she was considered a possible wrongdoer and the Organization was obliged to advise her that she had the right to secure the assistance of counsel. This omission amounted to a violation of her right to due process. 

43. The Respondent did not apply double-standards. According to the letter dated 23 May 2008, sent by the then Administrator, UNDP, to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the UNDP OAI finalized an investigation concerning Ms. Eveline Herfkens on 20 May 2008 who reportedly accepted financial benefits from her government while being a staff member with UNDP. In this connection, the Applicant claimed that Ms. Herfkens was found to be in a conflict of interest, but that no disciplinary action was taken against her. According to the Applicant, this demonstrated that the Respondent applied double-standards. 

44. The Respondent submits that the Applicant’s reference to the letter is of limited relevance in the context of her case. Ms. Herfkens’ appointment expired on 31 October 2007 and was not subsequently renewed. Ms. Herfkens was no longer a staff member when the investigation report of 20 May 2008 was purportedly issued. Thus, in light of the foregoing, UNDP could not possibly have initiated disciplinary proceedings against Ms. Herfkens as she was no longer a staff member.

Click here to read the UN Tribunal decision... bit.ly/R8E2XO

 

 

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees blasted for poor financial handling

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By George Russell

Published March 14, 2012 | FoxNews.com

EXCLUSIVE: The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, or UNHCR, two years ago was sitting on a stockpile of $437 million in unspent cash, even as a U.N. auditing agency warned that its sloppy handling of funds imperiled future contributions from U.N. member nations.

The report, issued last year but only introduced for member-state review in the U.N. General Assembly, cites UNHCR for sloppy bookkeeping, poor financial oversight, managerial disarray, and a lack of tools to judge how well it was doing its job of helping tens of millions of the world's displaced people.

The U.N.'s independent Board of Auditors used remarkably straight-forward language to lambaste the refugee agency, whose largest donor, the United States, contributed $712 million to UNHCR in 2010, according to the State Department. The auditors noted that the relief agency, which is financed largely by voluntary contributions, spent about $1.9 billion in 2010; its budget two years earlier was about $1.1 billion.

The auditors pointed out that there were “strong indicators of significant shortcomings in financial management" at the agency, headed since 2005 by Antonio Guterres, a former Socialist prime minister of Portugal. "This is a major risk for UNHCR," the auditors warned, "given the increasing pressures on donors to justify why they provide public funds to international aid organizations."

Moreover, the inspectors did not seem optimistic that the situation would change soon, even though UNHCR's management now says that it is working hard on a wide variety of fronts to change the disturbing situation.

The Board of Auditors report, written last year but only recently published, amounted to the first major external assessment of UNHCR's behavior after its spending began to balloon dramatically in 2008 in line with a new strategy known as the Global Needs Assessment, a novel way to encourage donors to come up with more cash.

Rather than looking at its donor pledges and then determining its budget, UNHCR is now using the Global Needs Assessment to determine the amount that it feels it needs to spend, then building a budget to accommodate that perspective -- though, in the end, it still must manage with the amount it takes in.

The new approach has given more of a social welfare tilt to UNHCR relief efforts, even though it is still thought of primarily as a front-line relief group that doles out emergency food and shelter to populations displaced across national borders by war, famine and drought.

Click here to see the Auditors Report.

The Obama administration has apparently found the Global Needs approach convincing. U.S. contributions to the relief agency increased by about 40 percent between 2008 and 2010,before tailing off only slightly last year.

For this year and next, when UNHCR hopes to spend about $3.3 billion a year under its Global Needs, a State Department spokesperson told Fox News, U.S. support "will depend on current crises to which UNHCR responds."

For UNHCR's external auditors, however, the issue is not so much the agency's needs as its financial and management capabilities -- and these it found dolefully lacking. Among other things, the auditors' report notes:

--UNHCR could not balance its many checkbooks. No fewer than 99 of its bank and investment accounts, holding more than $375 million, 'lacked up-to-date reconciliations, a key financial control.' The auditors had warned about the same problem a year earlier, and not much was done about it. (The backlog had been cut to three active accounts before the auditors' report was published.)

--the agency wasn't even prepared for its own audit, reflecting "significant deficiencies in the systems in place to prepare its financial statements, and in the quality of the supervision and ownership of these processes, from the most senior executive level downward and across the entire organization."

--UNHCR "remains unable to gather and analyses basic management information on its operations," or "to get a full grip on the performance of its implementing partners or the delivery of major initiatives." Translation: it doesn't know what it is actually doing.

--UNHCR's own share of what it takes in from donors is high. Despite roughly 22 percent of its $1.9 billion in actual spending for 2010 that went to "administrative overhead and staff benefits," the report notes. At the time of the audit, UNHCR had 6,300 regular staff working in some 380 offices located in 125 countries.

-- despite those overheads, roughly one-third of UNHCR's spending ($667 million) went to "implementing partners," meaning non-government organizations and others who carried out relief operations. Who they all were, and how well they functioned, was not at all clear. The process of selecting those partners, the auditors noted, "lacks rigor and transparency, increasing the risk of fraud, corruption, inefficiency and poor partner performance."

--More than half of the implementing partners had worked for UNHCR for more than five years, and the auditors found "little evidence of any kind of competitive selection process," cost comparison or matching of capabilities with requirements. The Board of Auditors said it was "particularly concerned at the lack of transparency in partner selection processes and the increased risk of fraud and corruption to which this exposes UNHCR."

--however badly the partners -- or for that matter, UNHCR staffers -- performed in the field, however, the Board of Auditors did not think highly of the agency's ability to judge it. "Performance from its country network does not enable management to make effective judgments as to the cost-effectiveness of projects and activities or to hold local managers accountable for performance," the report says.

If anything, the Board of Auditors report underplays the seriousness of UNHCR's lack of field intelligence on its own operations, many of which stem from a multimillion-dollar fiasco involving installation of a new, systemwide software system, known as Focus. The software was supposed to integrate financial and human resources information, in order to propel UNHCR toward better "results-based management."

According to another internal U.N. inspection report, which Fox News reported on last May, there have been "years of delays" in installing Focus, and the lack of information has affected hundreds of millions of dollars in UNHCR spending.

Asked how the U.S. viewed the Board of Auditors report, a State Department spokesman declared that "we follow the institutional and operational issues closely." The spokesman also pointed to statements made by the U.S. at a meeting of UNHCR's executive committee last October, where a U.S. diplomat declared that "several of the findings of the Board concern us," without going into detail. At another "ex-com" session in Geneva, U.S. Ambassador David Robinson underlined that "the United States remains a committed partner with UNHCR and the beneficiaries it serves."

How does UNHCR itself intend to deal with the management swamp outlined in the Board of Auditors report?

Not to worry, according to the agency's management. In a report nearly as long as the auditors' investigation, UNHCR last September outlined a lengthy list of "measures taken and proposed" to improve things. Some of them, however, seemed vague, or less than wholesale.

On the alarming bank account reconciliation process, for example, the agency reported that it had already done a great deal, and that “bank accounts held at Headquarters are fully reconciled and are routinely reconciled on a monthly basis.” But this excludes accounts in the field, where the auditors are particularly critical of oversight lapses.

In addressing what the auditors call "deficiencies in country office financial management and reporting capacity," UNHCR says it will "review relevant audit and inspection reports, consult with Headquarters and Bureaux and continue to analyse data ... to focus on those country offices in need of greater strengthening of financial management practices. Based on this review and analysis, UNHCR will develop workplans to address the identified gaps." It hopes to have the process completed by the end of this year.

When it comes to adopting a "risk-management" approach to its partners in relief operations, as the auditors recommended, UNHCR says it first must adopt a "Differentiated Risk-Based Framework" and then apply it appropriately. The agency projects, somewhat murkily, that the "overall development application of the Framework will be completed by 2014."

Click here to read the 'Measures Taken' report.

Asked by Fox News last week whether it was on track to meet the many promised deadlines in its "measures taken" report, UNHCR had not replied before this article was published.

George Russell is executive editor of Fox News and can be found on Twitter @GeorgeRussell

Click for more stories by George Russell

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UNDP 2010 Human Development Index rank Norway #1 - while Norway's corrupt NORAD delays report on UNDP's financials

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#Norway was ranked #1 in the 2010 Human #Development Index. Which country will rank 1st in this yr’s #HDR2011? on.undp.org/c5lHux

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@UNDP 4sure that's why #NORAD is not publishing the report on ur financials - 'cause u rank @norwayUN #1foxnews.com/world/2011/07/… SO CORRUPT

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UN WOMEN SCANDAL: a corrupt Dutch politician and a thief is back as advisor at the United Nations

Is Eveline Herfkens the best Dutch people have to represent them at the United Nations:

SHAME ON NETHERLANDS

Corrumperen met Eveline Herfkens

She didn't care about the Dutch poor when she "forgot to declare" more than $200 Thousand dollars in housing subsidy on top of a quarter-million dollars in daily subsidy allowances from UNDP's Ad Melkert.

Tegegnework Gettu's involvement in Eveline Herfken's Scandal documented (emails reveal inside story and what Ad Melkert knew)

Eveline Herfkens the sleek Dutch Social-Democrat and girlfriend of Ad Melkert, was double charging for her New York Residence:

1) UNDP = $2500 per month rental subsidy;

2) Dutch Government = $ 7000 per month rent;

On top of an ASG salary of almost $250,000.00 per year, this pro-poor advocate was certainly enjoying her life in the big apple. Eventhough she almost never actually leaved in this residence, since she was never in New York for that matter.

Documents obtained from UNDP Watch show that Eveline Herfkens has been traveling the world on UNDP expense, on top of all her perks.

For 4 years the Dutch Government paid $84,000 dollars per year for a total of close to $400,000 Dollars for the rent of Herfkens apartment. All this on top of the rent subsidy claimed from UNDP, which was close to $2500 per month, mounting to an additional $120,000 dollars.


What makes this story even more beautiful is that while the Dutch Government was paying her rent, she had already changed her nationality from Dutch to American (green-card-holder).

So practically the Dutch Government Was Paying for an American in New York.

Another aspect is that while she had changed her nationality, and currently is an american, she still travels with a Dutch Diplomatic Passport.

The Dutch Government should demand back every penny of their contribution to paying the rent for Eveline.

ONLY AT THE UNITED NATIONS !!