SYRIA SCANDAL: Did United Nations in Syria cleared this "dual-use" facility in Homs to become a UNFCCC vendor?

At the same time the Syrian regime of Bashir Al-Assad began the brutal repression that would quickly spin the country into civil war—and culminate with the use of chemical weapons against its own citizens-- Syrian officials were officially registering a deal with the United Nations agency sponsoring the world's largest carbon-trading scheme for an industrial complex known for years as a “dual-use” facility in the government's production of the same weapons of mass destruction.

Click here to read this story in full @ Fox News: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/09/23/un-emissions-trading-project-has-links-to-syria-chemical-weapons-arsenal/

SCANDAL: Liberia: UNMIL's Double Deals Expose (pt-1)

Click here to read this in full @ All Africa.com: http://allafrica.com/stories/201301080482.html

Several audit documents relating to various transactions within the United Nations Mission in Liberia (UNMIL) have revealed lack of transparency and double dealings within the Mission.

The various audit documents which date back from August 2009 through to June 2012 covers various audit periods from 2007 to 2012 outlining flaws within the selection and awarding of contract.
In most instances, the audits revealed that senior officials ignored the UN's stipulated guidelines and procedures in awarding or selecting a vendor for a particular contract.

UNMIL has since accepted most of the recommendations made by auditors suggesting that these double dealings had unfolded in the system over a protracted period.

According to the auditors, in some cases, officials at the UNMIL's Procurement Section would encourage vendors of their choice to submit bids after the closing date, and days after technically accepted vendors have been identified.

This scenario was captured in the October 29, 2010 audit report which covers the period June 1, 2008 to March 31, 2010.

This audit review 22 contracts with values ranging from US6,000 to US80 million.
The total expenditure related to local contracts for UNMIL during the fiscal year of 2007/2008 and 2008/2009 was 43, 851, 839 and 38,002 852 respectively.

In one of the 22 sampled contracts during the period under review, the contract(8MIL/CON/298) for vehicle maintenance with a initial not to exceed amount of US120,000 was awarded to a vendor who was requested by the Procurement Session to submit a bid after the bid closing date and after three vendors had been identified.

Interestingly, although the UNMIL officials at the Procurement Session had convinced the local committee on contract that the two vendors who were approached to submit bids after the closing date were the authorized dealers of the vehicles used by UNMIL, the job was subcontracted to one of the vendors who had earlier been identified by the one drafted in by UNMIL procurement officials.
The audit made reference to another instance where officials flouted the UN's Financial Rule 105.16,by requesting a Ghanaian vendor to apply for a contract that was meant for local companies. The UN Financial Rule 105.16 allows exception to formal solicitation only where there is no competitive marketplace for the requirement.

But during the request for expression of bids for one of the contracts under review, the expression of interest for the maintenance of generators with an initial not to exceed amount of US713,940 was advertised here in the local newspaper because it was a local procurement.

However, auditors discovered that the vendor who won the bid and was awarded the contract (Contract No. 8MIL/CON/292) was from Ghana. The vendor, the auditors said was invited by an official of UNMIL and was requested by the said official to provisionally register his company.
The UN Procurement Manual provides that at the request of a procurement officer, a company maybe provisionally registered in the Vendor's Database by the Vendor Database Officer, but in many instances the procurement officers did the provisional registration instead of the Vendor Database Officers.

Click here to read this in full @ All Africa.com: http://allafrica.com/stories/201301080482.html

UNDP Scandal: Did Obama lie about Iran sanctions? - - UNDP has received clearance from USUN to give Iran 135 Millions for "environmental" assistance

Click here for this in full @ Trend :  http://en.trend.az/regions/iran/2081868.html

Azerbaijan, Baku, Oct. 30 / Trend T. Jafarov /

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) has allocated $135 million to Iran to resolve environmental problems with shoaling Lake Urmia, Iran's Environment Protection Organisation director Mohammad Javad Mohammadizadeh said today.

MEHR agency reported that Mohammadizadeh said that the main problem with Iran's lakes, including Lake Urmia, Parishan and Hamun and some others is that much water of the rivers flowing into the lake are used indiscriminately. This leads to their becoming shallow.

According to the foreign media, UNDP has allocated $ 235 million to Iran, including 135 million to resolve the problems with Lake Urmia within the development programme for 2012-2016.

According to the official statistics, around 70 per cent of the Lake Urmia has become shallow.

Currently, a litre of lake water contains up to 400 grams of salt. Previously, the volume of salt in a litre of water was 160-170 grams

The area of Lake Urmia is about 6000 square kilometres. Drying up of the lake has an impact on the flora and fauna of the region.

A project of directing 600 million cubic meters of water from the Araz River into Lake Urmia was launched during a visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and members of the government to Tabriz in 2010. It was planned to allocate $1.2 billion to implement this project.

The Iranian government allocated $900 million for this purpose in September 2011.

Protest actions were held in Tabriz and Urmia in connection with the shoaling of Lake Urmia in 2011.
Dozens of Iranian Azerbaijanis were arrested.

Do you have any feedback? Contact our journalist at agency@trend.az

Click here for this in full @ Trend :  http://en.trend.az/regions/iran/2081868.html

After $$Billions lost in transactions by UNDP - Bill Gate's Global Fund decides to "trust UNDP" again with hudreds of millions for Zimbabwe

Click here to read this article on HIV/AIDS Zimbabwe

Global Fund commits more grants to Zim

September 5, 2012 . - Leave a Comment

by Paidamoyo Chipunza | The Herald
The United Nations Development Programme will continue to receive and disburse grants from the Global Fund to Fight Aids, Tuberculosis and Malaria in Zimbabwe. Global Fund senior fund portfolio manager for High Impact Africa 11, Mr. Perry Mwangala said the fund’s secretariat would continue to require assessment reports from the UNDP and the sub-recipients by a local fund agent.
He was speaking in an interview after a three-day visit to Zimbabwe last week.
Mr. Mwangala said the decisions were based on the findings of an independent review conducted in June this year, on the additional safeguard policy to grants in Zimbabwe.
“Global Fund has decided to retain its right to select a principal recipient, and for now that is UNDP,” he said.
“Secondly, the secretariat will continue to require the local fund agent to conduct enhanced PR and sub-recipients assessments.”
The Global Fund introduced additional safeguard measures in 2008, which led to the appointment of UNDP as the PR of Zimbabwe’s grants.
These measures are meant to ensure that grants are not diverted to other services other than those listed in the country’s proposal.
Mr. Mwangala said although Global Fund had retained some of the safeguard measures, the majority of them had been lifted.
Those that have been removed include disbursements of grants quarterly to twice a year.
Mr. Mwangala said the new arrangement was meant to enable programmes to focus more on implementation rather than reporting.
“Having recognised the significant progress the programmes in Zimbabwe have made, including efforts to reach universal coverage for anti-retroviral treatment, and moving towards malaria elimination in a large number of districts, the secretariat has decided to shift disbursements from quarterly to semi-annual,” Mr. Mwangala said.
He noted that flow of funds to programmes in Zimbabwe was erratic owing to late disbursements.
“The year 2012 proved to be a challenging year for Zimbabwe grants as many of them were going for renewal, which was the main reason for delay in disbursing to programmes,” he said.
Mr. Mwangala said most of the Global Fund-supported projects in Zimbabwe reflected positive impact in the fight against diseases.
He said with the recent support from the US government and the DFID, the Global Fund was able to accelerate support for anti-retroviral treatment in Zimbabwe.
“This effort will ensure the HIV treatment programme has a six-month buffer for drugs to ensure and prevent treatment disruptions as well as realise universal coverage for anti-retroviral treatment,” he said.
Mr. Mwangala said they were in discussions with malaria programme officials and other partners to assess the possibility of universal coverage of treated mosquito nets for the entire country.
However, this would require the national malaria programme to conduct a thorough gap analysis before the Global Fund could support the realisation of universal coverage for mosquito nets.

Click here to read this article on HIV/AIDS Zimbabwe 

WallStreetJournal: UNDP in Afghanistan involved in yet another scandal - will Jens Wandel clean up house (while Darshak Shah's wife runs for UNFCU top board position?)

FOR FULL ARTICLE CLICK HERE TO READ IT ON WALL-STREET JOURNAL

U.N. Defends Afghan Police Fund as Donors Seek Probe

By NATHAN HODGE, YAROSLAV TROFIMOV and STEPHEN FIDLER

KABUL—International donors called on Sunday for an inquiry into potential mismanagement of the United Nations-administered trust fund that helps pay for Afghanistan's fledgling police force, even as the U.N. reiterated its support for the program and denied the accusations.

The Wall Street Journal reported late last week that the Monitoring and Evaluation Committee, an anticorruption group composed of high-level Afghan and international officials, expressed concerns about the Law and Order Trust Fund for Afghanistan, or Lotfa. Administered by the U.N. Development Program, Lotfa covers salaries, benefits and other operating costs for the Afghan National Police.

The issue is sensitive because Lotfa—established in 2002 as a result of international donor concerns that the Afghan government was at the time unable to properly disburse the money itself—is supposed to be an example of probity.

Most of the money in the fund comes from the U.S., European nations and Japan. "We will request a detailed investigation and accountability," a senior Western official said Sunday. "There is zero tolerance of mismanagement and corruption."

An American official in Kabul added that the U.S. has strongly supported the work of the committee that highlighted the problems at Lotfa. "We encourage the UNDP to be responsive to the concerns raised by the MEC that have been reported on," the U.S. official said.

In Brussels, a spokesman for the European Union's External Action Service, which is responsible for foreign aid, said the issues raised by the Journal article "are indeed a matter of serious concern." The EU would follow up with the UNDP "to ensure all necessary actions are taken to restore donor confidence in the management of Lotfa," he said.

In a detailed response to the Journal's article, the UNDP on Sunday denied allegations that the fund was vulnerable to fraud, and said specific incidents of possible corruption, raised by apparent whistleblowers in documents reviewed by the Journal, were incorrect.

The U.N. mission in Afghanistan added that a recently conducted financial audit of Lotfa by KPMG found no financial irregularities. "I am confident that comprehensive steps to ensure transparency and oversight are being taken by UNDP to further its efforts to contribute to a robust and professional police force in Afghanistan," said Michael Keating, the U.N. mission's deputy head.

In a finding issued to donors Friday, the Monitoring and Evaluation Committee said Lotfa "has been and will continue to be vulnerable to corruption," even though the fund is crucial to Afghanistan's security.

"The lack of proper oversight and accountability of Lotfa has been flagged by a number of institutions as insufficient for a trust fund of this size and importance," the finding says. "UNDP Country Office has received internal complaints and is conducting its own integrity checks and financial audits which need to be published and made public."

The committee also called for the fund's management to publish the results of a recent internal audit, which UNDP officials said showed no evidence of irregularity.

On Sunday, Ashraf Ghani, Afghanistan's presidential adviser who oversees the transition of security to Afghan control, told reporters in Kabul that the U.N. needs to overhaul its auditing system. "Its auditing system is of a different century," he said.

Among the internal complaints raised within Lotfa were suspicions that the program may have overpaid for office supplies and equipment, or paid worker salaries for positions that went unfilled, according to the whistleblower documents reviewed by the Journal.

Satinder Bindra, the UNDP's director of communications, said in a statement Sunday that the agency "has a zero-tolerance policy towards any form of mismanagement or corruption for its entire country program in Afghanistan," and added that it was "committed to diligently following up on" the committee's recommendations.

Responding to specific allegations of the misallocation of funds, the UNDP said it found no evidence of wrongdoing. A luxury furniture set flagged in one internal document as possibly not being documented or delivered was "procured with full procedural checks and are still being used by the head of the Afghan Border Police," the UNDP said.

An $800 paper shredder mentioned in a report as possibly being purchased for above market price "was in line with our procurement policy and was only approved after the project justified its need for a more robust product," the UNDP said.

The UNDP acknowledged in its response that it was aware of the risk of "no-show" workers at Afghanistan's interior ministry who may still be paid on contract by Lotfa.

"Precisely because we are fully aware of this risk, a system was established for all the staff in the Ministry of Interior in key departments to work under contract," the statement said. "Payments to staff are only processed after the examination of monthly attendance sheets submitted to supervisors, who sign off on the entire process."

The Afghan interior ministry didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

FOR FULL ARTICLE CLICK HERE TO READ IT ON WALL-STREET JOURNAL

UNDP Documents show Setronix a supplier to the Quartermaster General of National Arm Forces of Venezuela

The saga of the scanners for Venezuela continue, raising more and more suspicion on the existence of such procurement and the continuing involvement of UNDP in dirty deals with dictators around the world. Now UNDP publish documents which prove that Setronix, the contractor selected from UNDP in a waiver of competitive biding, was and still is a supplier for the quartermaster general for National Arm Forces of Venezuela.

On April 16th UNDP's David Morrison continued with it's version of the Venezuela story. UNDP produced in their For-the-record (blog) two documents from Setronix which were supposed to prove the existence of the scanners.

David Morrison stated that:

Number of scanners: The original number of scanners was 19. During the
lengthy procurement process, however, the price of the scanners went up. Precisely to accommodate this contingency, UNDP Resident Representatives are given limited authority to adjust contracts accordingly. On the scanner contract, after consulting with SENIAT, UNDP reduced the number of scanners to 17, and increased the overall amount of the contract by $5000. Even at the increased price, the L3 Communications scanners were much less expensive than those in rival bids.The procurement was done in two shipments, one for 16 scanners and the other for one scanner. (Click on following two links to view the documents for all 17 scanners: 1, 2).

First of all both these document clearly indicate that Setronix was and is a supplier for the Quartermaster General for National Arm Forces of Venezuela. Instead of proof of arrivals documents are direct indisputable proof of movement/shipment of equipment from one military base to another. Raising direct question of allege use of equipment from "public".

The problem is that both documents produced from UNDP are neither the Certificates of Customs nor the Lending Certificates which, as per UNDP procurement rules, would have been proof of shipment. Both documents are hand created documents which describes the transportation of certain equipment from one city to another city in Venezuela, and nor the dates nor the cities mentioned in the both documents refer to the port of arrival (or airport) of the initial L3 document which UNDP put online.


More important is that the latest document produced from UNDP (2) has been produced on April 3 - 2008, only days after the first story of FOX NEWS, and it contains a different seal of SENIAT on the document. This date is totally different with the statement of Setronix that the equipment arrived in Venezuela in Nov 2007.


But more important is that in the letter to FOX NEWS on April 11, 2008 , Setronix - the UNDP's contractor admits that the 1 unit out of 17 left Miami International airport and arrived at Simon Bolivar International Airport in Venezuela on Nov 11, 2007. (while in the alleged certificate is indicated April 3, 2008). In the same document Setronix indicate that they had received from UNDP - 90% of the contract payment. While none of the documents provided above is prove of existence or of the implementation of the said scanners in any given Venezuelan public Airport, nor they prove that such equipment are for public use by public administration and not the military (as in fact stated in both docs 1, 2)

Based on UNDP internal processes and rules, the above raises important questions:

• So who at UNDP's Venezuela Office cleared this procurement ?
• Who went to the receiving airport or port customs to receive the goods and clear the goods ?
• Who signed on PO and released the 90% of the payments and based on which proof of goods and certificate of good-condition?
• Who cleared this payment at UNDP's HQs Finance Unit and based on which supporting documentation?

How far should member states hear to these lies from a public funded organization, that is so irresponsible that issues payment to a supplier for the Quartermaster General for National Arm Forces of Venezuela, before installation or proof of delivery ?

Where are the pictures of the equipments purchased from UNDP ?

Second Probe of UNDP-North Korea Scandal Set to Begin

Second Probe of UNDP-North Korea Scandal Set to Begin
Saturday , July 07, 2007

By George Russell
FOXNEWS

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The next round in the investigation of the United Nations Development Program’s scandal-tainted operations in North Korea is about to begin.

The question is whether it will be any more successful than the original probe in getting a clear picture of a UNDP program that the U.S. government, among others, charges was hijacked by the communist government of Kim Jong Il and funneled millions in UNDP hard currency into North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

Another big question is how much, if any, of the UNDP’s documentation will be turned over to the auditors this time for inspection. The bulk of that documentation is still in U.N. safekeeping in Pyongyang — where the previous group of auditors was barred by Kim’s government.

The bell for Round 2 was quietly sounded nearly two weeks ago, in a June 29 letter from the United Nations’ board of external auditors to a U.N. General Assembly committee that examines budget issues. A copy of the letter has been obtained by FOX News.

The letter announces that the auditors, at the urging of U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, will make a second attempt to probe the depths of the UNDP’s operations in North Korea, which were suspended in February after the Kim regime refused to accept a variety of new restrictions sparked by the U.S. accusations. When the new auditing effort will begin is not specified.

The North Korean government refused to cooperate in the first U.N. audit, which was published on May 31, and which corroborated many of the U.S. accusations, based in turn on confidential UNDP inspections done in previous years.

According to the Round 1 auditors, UNDP made unauthorized hard currency payments to the North Korean government, not only for its own work in North Korea but for a variety of other U.N. agencies — at least $72 million from 2002 to 2006.

UNDP had hired 22 of its 31 staffers locally, in some cases in oversight roles. The local employees were not only nominated by Kim’s dictatorship, but remained North Korean government employees. The auditors also declared that many inspections of UNDP development projects in North Korea were only carried out under North Korean escort and in some cases by the same local North Korean employees.

Despite all that, UNDP officials declared the initial audit an exoneration, leading to declarations of “dismay” by U.S. diplomats.

Since then, the issue has further morphed into a point of visible tension between the U.S. mission to the U.N. and top UNDP officials, especially the multibillion-dollar agency’s No. 2 man, Associate Administrator Ad Melkert, who allegedly threatened “retaliation” against the U.S. in closed-door meetings over the North Korea affair. Melkert and UNDP have strongly denied the allegation.

For their part, U.S. officials raised the stakes further by documenting additional UNDP fund diversions, in some cases to known North Korean weapons developers, from their own sources. UNDP has in turn rejected the U.S. allegations as based on false evidence and challenged U.S. diplomats to come up with more and better documentation.

All told, the confrontation has marked an extraordinary watershed in relations between the $5 billion U.N. flagship development agency and its largest single financial supporter. The U.S. contributes roughly $100 million to the UNDP budget and is a member of its overseeing 36-nation Executive Board.

The question is whether a further audit will clear the air — or add to the fog.

The auditors themselves do not appear to be entirely sure.

In the letter to the U.N. budget committee, the head of the U.N. auditing board, Philippe Seguin, gingerly declares that a second probe “will provide additional evidence” to back the conclusions of the initial report.

But the auditors backed away from recommendations in the earlier document that urged the U.N. seek “accountability” for the lapses outlined in its first report and attempt to trace where UNDP money might have migrated in North Korea once it left the agency’s hands.

Nor will the new probe attempt to clarify another explosive issue: the discovery of at least $3,500 in counterfeit U.S. money that had apparently been stowed for years in a UNDP safe in Pyongyang. Such efforts would be “investigative,” Seguin says, and thus outside the auditors’ mandate.

Finally, the new probe will depend once again on the whims of North Korea’s rulers on whether the inspectors will get to visit Pyongyang at all. Seguin’s letter makes clear that the auditors require “unrestricted access” to UNDP and other U.N. operations in North Korea, as well as visas, housing, and “agreement on access to all project sites.” All were refused for the first audit.

If that permission is not granted, UNDP officials have promised that they will bring their documents, both paper and electronic, out of North Korea for inspection — something the U.S. has demanded since before the initial audit took place.

But that in turn could raise questions about whether any of the records were erased or suppressed in the months since the controversy surfaced—or even if they all have then made the trip back from Pyongyang.

All such sparring, however, lies far ahead — provided that the U.N.’s promise to keep probing continues to be honored.

George Russell is executive editor of FOX News.