Friday, December 14, 2007

Ad Melkert awards $300 Thousand for his "fake Dutch" party-woman-friend

After sinking Paul Wolfowitz for awarding a contract to his girl-friend, Ad Melkert awards $300 thousand contract to his party-woman-friend from Holland.

Today we will continue to discuss about the Procurement Frauds at the United Nations Development Programme.

ACP Submission: ACP/07/0763 (Waiver)
Contract Award: US$ 225,750.00 (Part-Time SSA)
Contractor Name: Eva Leonie Herfkens (Eveline Herfkens)




Not everyone can do what this woman can.

Name: Eva Leonie Herfkens (Eveline)

Nationality at Birth: Dutch

Nationality (current): United States - Green Card Holder

Passport: Dutch Diplomatic Passport

Political Affiliation: Communist (Dutch Labour Party)

But more importantly is that this lady love to work for the poor. She is so in love to work for the poor that eventhough she has not enough time to do that, she works so hard as a UNDP part-time contractor (SSA) that she get's paid as an Assistant Secretary General, which comes from Dutch Taxpayers worth US$ 300,000.00.

The problem with Eva Leonie, is that she loves Dutch money but doesn't like to pay the hefty Dutch Tax-es, worth 39-45% on income. Therefore this communist Dutch, former Party comrade of Ad Melkert (Nr. 2 of UNDP), calls some "very powerful US Members of Congress" and asks that she be awarded the United States Green Card on the grounds of "person with exceptional abilities".

So after working as Assistant Secretary General appointed from Holland (Dutch-happy-land) as head of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) - Eva Leonie had enough of paying all those tax-es back home.



She picks up the phone calls her Party Comrade Ad Melkert and asks that he changes her contract from ASG (assistant Secretary general) into SSA (Contractor). Than on March 2007, Eva Leonie Herfkens, become Eveline Herfkens a US Green Card Holder.

But an SSA-Contract doesn't give you much visibility and certainly doesn't allow Eva Leonie to continue to keep her former title as Assistant Secretary General of UNDP for MDGs, be invited to parties in town or travel in business class.

A friend of Ad Melkert can have it all. At the end why friends are for ? Ad Melkert is un-touchable, he is protected from Mark Malloch Brown and Kemal Dervis. Therefore for him to hire and award a part-time job worth $300,000 to a woman-friend is nothing.

Therefore against all rules and regulations, Eva Leonie - continues to:

- carry the UN ID (gold) of an Secretary General (not allowed for an SSA);

- continues to carry the UN LP (passport) eventhough her contractual status doesn't permit one.

How come the UN Department of Security Services (DSS) doesn't stop this woman. Who is so powerful within the UN Secretariat that eventhough this lady is SSA-Contractor since March 2007, she continues to enter the building with a GOLD ID ? Who allowed this major security breach ? Should anyone pay for this?

Let's see what would be the reaction of the Dutch Government. Would they demand that Eva Leonie return her Dutch Diplomatic Passport back ? Would they continue to pay her salary of $300,000 for a part-time performance ?

Or since she is a Green Card Holder - her contract might be taken over from the United States of America and American Tax-payers ? Maybe her contract is part of the package of the increased budget that Mr. Khalilzad and Mr. Mark Wallace the US Ambassador for UN Reform are fighting for ?

But they shouldn't forget that this lady is still a Dutch Diplomat with a Dutch Diplomatic Passport - she can still claim back her Dutch Nationality.

Only in an Organization (UNDP) and the Land (USA) of Opportunities would the above happen ! What a story !

A Culture of Impunity at the United Nations

1. With yet another scandal erupting in UNDP - one cannot help concluding that something is seriously wrong with the United Nations. There is simply no room for complacency when this once well-respected organisation is suddenly seen stumbling from one corruption scandal into another, visibly unable to stop the rot.

2. How this long trail of crises may impact the Organisation and influence the course of reform is still too early to tell. What seems beyond any doubt is that the flaws are systemic, deeply ingrained into the structures currently in place; not just unfortunate symptoms of erratic human behaviour. As Nobelist J. Stiglitz once put it: if one accident occurs at a busy intersection, we call it “just an accident”. If ten “accidents” occur at this same intersection, in the course of a single day, they are no longer “accidents”. The system is at fault.

3. In fact, such was the sense that the UN Staff Council has made of recent developments at Turtle Bay. In a landmark resolution (RES/32/47) passed in September 2007, this representative body of UN employees deplored what it described as “a culture of impunity permeating the higher levels of the Organisation, compounded by a dysfunctional internal justice system, which continues to deny staff members justice”. The move was unprecedented and the language unusually strong, calling on Mr. Ban, the new Secretary-General, “to put his house in order”.

4. It is hardly surprising that the UN Staff Council should voice its deep concern over actions and decisions, which seriously undermine the prestige and credibility of the United Nations. What is even more remarkable is how, in a few words, it has been able to express what is precisely wrong: a “culture of impunity in the higher ranks of the Service”; a dysfunctional justice system, and a fragmented structure, which makes the UN today look like East Asia or Europe during the Age of Feudalism. Restoring a semblance of unity, of order and sound management may well need to begin with a review and revision of some of the departures of the past 15 years which, on the hallowed principle of “decentralisation”, fragmented the Organisation and sapped the needed coherence of its internal management.

5. Observers of the system will tell you that, periodically over the years, the UN Organisation has veered from one extreme of centralisation, to pronounced decentralisation. Still, until the early nineties there was a system in place. The locus of responsibility for the implementation of policies occasionally shifted, sometimes in the direction of the “Executive Offices”, in charge of the administration of the individual departments, and sometimes the other way, back to the central body in charge of overall management. However more importantly, until the early nineties, we had in the UN what an Executive Officer, who left at about that time, described characteristically as "an employee-friendly organization".

6. Not any longer. All of this came to an end in the wake of “decentralisation”, which gave the “programme managers” – mostly the Heads of Divisions – the power to hire and fire and virtually total control of their respective staff. Past safeguards introduced out of concern for equity were brusquely attenuated. The logic was impeccable; mostly private sector – inspired. According to this argument, the quality of outputs of any given Division or Department depended on total control over the needed inputs. The move to decentralise let it be understood that UN programme managers had been too greatly hampered by lack of such control and the “overprotection” of staff.

7. For all those who remember the seventies and the eighties at the United Nations, there may be a grain of truth in this line of argument. But while “overprotection” of the staff, during these earlier decades may have created problems in isolated cases, the other extreme has proved to be far worse. It cannot be overlooked that the United Nations does not operate on the logic of private enterprise and that its senior managers only remotely resemble CEOs of private firms. Tasks and attendant risks are simply not the same. Moreover, senior managers at the United Nations are subject to the ever-present tensions between their obligations under the UN Charter (Article 101 and Regulation I), which define their responsibilities as “exclusively international”, and pressures from national governments to which some often yield.

8. To compound the problem, two major attendant developments have further undermined the staff members’ sense of security and their trust in the Organisation. One is the drastic reduction of “permanent” appointments. They are now virtually limited to people who have entered after competing successfully in the National Professional Competitive Examination. The other significant factor was recently highlighted in the landmark resolution of the UN Staff Council: “a dysfunctional internal justice system” coupled with a fragmented organisational structure. The cumulative effect has clearly been to enhance the hold of senior managers over their staff, but correspondingly also to weaken the latter’s position.

9. None of this appears on paper. On paper, guarantees in the form of internal controls, an “Ethics Infrastructure” and “Accountability Mechanisms” are all in place. But do they work in practice? Too many recent happenings suggest that the answer is “NO”. An Office of Internal Oversight (OIOS) exists. It has no enforcement powers, cannot “sub-poena” documents and must depend on goodwill from members of the staff of the audited department, whose friendly disposition cannot be taken for granted. However heavily “edited” to ease the susceptibilities of senior programme managers, its final audit reports have very little effect. The targeted department may simply choose to ignore or opt out of them. This happened to audits on Procurement Divisions, on Funds and Programme and even in satellite offices and regional projects administered from OCHA and UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs. What prompted the Staff Council to pass it Resolution of August 27 was the UNDP’s failure to abide by a decision of the United Nations Ethics Office and the Secretary-General’s reluctance to enforce ST/SGB/2005/21 in the face of opposition from the UNDP “higher levels”.

10. Implausibly, the UNDP has argued that the Circular protecting whistleblowers from retaliatory acts, did not apply to its staff. As if to assuage staff members’ discontent and counter bad publicity, UNDP declared its intention to “investigate itself”. It was manifestly oblivious of the fact and ancient legal principle that “no one is best judge in his own case” (nemo judex in causa sua).

11. Not surprisingly, in these circumstances, the message to the staff throughout the Organisation is plainly not to expect that justice will be done. In the prevailing climate of growing insecurity and declining staff morale, the lesson that staff members may be inclined to draw is to play it safe and look the other way in the face of arbitrariness, malfeasance or mismanagement. One does not have to read between the lines of the latest audit report to realise that, sadly, abuses and mismanagement are not in short supply. They mostly go unreported. If anything transpires which might make senior management look bad, the “little guys” are faulted, preferably in distant places. Twice in a row this happened with the recently BoM, OCHA and DESA audited project. Likewise, in UNDP little guys paid dearly for doing their duty to speak.

12. One needs to fathom the causes for this “culture of impunity” in the higher ranks of the Service, and the attendant culture of fear and conformity below. Other than fragmentation and the visible “infeudation” of parts of the Secretariat, we must look to the primacy accorded to “fund-raising” and “resource mobilisation” as major contributing factors. Simply put, the Organisation spends many times the amount that it receives in the form of the Regular Budget voted by the General Assembly. Extra-budgetary resources come from many different sources – mostly from contributions of major donor governments. What happens to these funds and how well they are expended requires more careful scrutiny than they receive at present.

13. However, more importantly, the cumulative effects of this increased dependency on “voluntary” contributions, chiefly from Member States, must also be confronted. We know only too well that, also internationally, there simply is “no free lunch”. This is certainly borne out by the United Nations’ evolving pattern of “operational activities”. Long gone are the laborious “programming cycles”, which in the past decades, in spite of limitations, served to ensure that programmes of technical cooperation with the developing countries were truly demand-driven. One has reason to believe that nowadays “who pays the piper calls the tune”. Of course, sometimes this works. However, all too often, in this “fund-raising” environment, high-visibility projects are those that will find favour. Sound bites and style over substance become the rule of the game. With decentralisation of power to hire and fire and lack of adequate safeguards, the effects on the selection and management of staff can hardly be beneficial. Expectedly, they induce a rampant disregard for independent judgment, professional integrity, and the staff’s disposition to “speak the truth to power”.

14. One hopes that this will change, indeed change for the better. But this will only happen if certain conditions are met. From what has been previously argued, chief among these conditions are: [a] the righting of the downsides of decentralisation; [b] making managers accountable in practice; not only in word or paper; [c] restoring and reinforcing the safeguards for the staff throughout the Organisation; [d] arresting and reversing the fragmentation of the United Nations, which has advanced too far; [e] building an effective and autonomous Ombudsman institution, which can protect staff members from the culture of impunity in the higher ranks of the Service; [f] protecting whistleblowers; and [g] significantly raising the effectiveness, autonomy and independence of the accountability mechanisms and ethics infrastructures.

15. Last but not least, we need to strictly enforce the duty of all UN Departments to acknowledge communications and to respond to queries which are addressed to them but also to account for their actions.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

FOX NEWS: Did U.N. Program Secretly Funnel Money to North Korea?

FOXNEWS.COM HOME > WORLD

Did U.N. Program Secretly Funnel Money to North Korea?

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

By George Russell

NEW YORK — Did the United Nations Development Program use an American charitable organization to secretly funnel nearly $2 million, and perhaps much more, to North Korea — over and above the millions in hard currency it is already known to have given the Kim Jong-il regime in violation of its own rules?

UNDP documents seen by FOX News raise those questions, and others about the relationship between UNDP and the humanitarian group Mercy Corps, also known as Mercy Corps International. The documents show millions of dollars allocated to Mercy Corps International for North Korea seem to have escaped normal UNDP oversight.

Both UNDP and Mercy Corps have rejected the idea of any direct dealings on North Korean territory, and spokespersons for both organizations told FOX News that their only joint project in the region operates solely in China, in a region adjacent to North Korea.

UNDP says it suspended all its operations in North Korea when the Kim regime refused to cooperate in an investigation of UNDP funding and staffing methods in the country, as well as the unexplained presence of thousands of dollars of counterfeit U.S. money that was stashed in a UNDP safe in Pyongyang.

Nonetheless, according to the internal documents seen by FOX News, close to $2 million in UNDP money was disbursed to Mercy for a project clearly labeled “MCI-DPRK” (the acronym for Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, as North Korea is formally known), and numbered in the UNDP book-keeping system as 12431.

The payments stretch from 2004 to January 2007 — or just weeks after accusations were first raised by U.S. diplomats concerning the hard-currency UNDP payments to the Kim regime. More than $200,000 was released to the Mercy Corps project at the end of January 2007.
Additional documents seen by FOX News seem to indicate that much more money — roughly $5.9 million — was budgeted by UNDP over the same 2004-2007 period under the MCI-DPRK rubric.

And intriguingly, most of the funds — roughly $4.6 million — are listed on the UNDP budget as coming from the U.S. Since 2002, the Bush Administration has expressly forbidden that any of the roughly $100 million it donated annually to UNDP be used on any project connected with the North Korean regime. (The U.S. government contribution is currently about $125 million.) UNDP has always declared that it honored those wishes.

UNDP operations in North Korea have been a hot-button issue for much of this year, following U.S. charges that the development organization had violated its rules for dealing with the North Korean regime. A U.S. congressional subcommittee is preparing to hold hearings on exactly how UNDP funneled millions in hard currency to the Kim regime, and whether some of that money ended up in North Korea’s illicit nuclear weapons programs

The money itemized in project 12431 is not part of that congressional inquiry, and the purpose of the project is not revealed in the documents seen by FOX News. Internal UNDP records further seem to indicate that the project has never been audited or formally evaluated through conventional UNDP mechanisms — normally a requirement for all UNDP projects of any magnitude or duration.

Both UNDP and Mercy Corps readily acknowledge that they operate a UNDP-financed project on the Chinese side of the China-North Korea border, known as “Poverty Alleviation and Humanitarian Assistance in the Tumen River Area.” The Tumen project combines a major emphasis on “micro-finance” loans for local small entrepreneurs with food, medical and housing assistance as well as job training for “vulnerable” local populations. Those populations include some 15,000 North Koreans in the vicinity, according to the UNDP’s own analysis of the project.
The Tumen project is labeled INT/02/H01 on UNDP documents describing it — and the same letters are used in labeling some project payments in the documents seen by FOX News. According to information provided by UNDP, the beginnings of the Tumen River project dates back to Mercy Corps relief efforts in 2001, which were revised and extended in 2003 to allow for greater micro-financing effort alongside the humanitarian relief.

For their part, Mercy Corps spokesmen list the project as only operating in China, though one of them added that most of the Chinese citizens in the designated area of China were of Korean ancestry, and the program “almost certainly covered some people who came and went back to Korea.”

But both Mercy and UNDP insist that the project does not extend to the North Korean side of the river.

“We are not aware of any other work with Mercy Corps remotely connected to DPRK,” said UNDP spokesman David Morrison, who also provided detailed information on the Tumen River project. “None inside DPRK and no other in the vicinity.”

UNDP documents seen by FOX News, however, clearly list project 12431, labeled “MCI-DPRK,” as distinct from the Tumen River project. The budget for project 12431 allocates large sums between 2004 and 2007 — nearly $2.7 million — for “consultants” and travel; and about the same amount for individual and corporate “services.”

But the documents say nothing about humanitarian supplies, job training or micro-finance resources, which are the apparent focus of Mercy Corps’ Tumen River efforts.

North Korea is far from the only focus for Mercy Corps’s humanitarian efforts. According to its website, the organization was founded in the late 1970s, currently employs about 3,400 people, and works in some 35 countries, including Afghanistan, Ethiopia and Zimbabwe. Its main focus is on helping communities recover from the ravages of war or social upheaval, with an emphasis on sustainable development and rebuilding civic institutions and the rule of law.

According to the website, Mercy Corps has a history of involvement with North Korea dating back to 1996, which includes an initiative to grow apple orchards and sustain fish farming. The involvement also includes substantial forays into “peace-building” between the U.S. and North Korea, originally begun by the organization’s co-founder and senior vice president Elis Culver, now deceased.

In 2004, as the Bush Administration expressed sharply growing alarm over North Korea’s bellicose statements and avowed intent to produce nuclear weapons, Culver led a private 12-person mission to North Korea to foster better relations. He won a posthumous “friendship medal” from North Korea for his efforts.

Mercy Corps’ current president, Nancy Lindborg, a well-regarded international aid professional, also has a personal history of trying to foster improved U.S.-North Korea ties. According to Mercy Corps’ website, she is “co-chair of the [U.S.] National Committee on North Korea and chair of the InterAction North Korea working group, [where] she leads efforts to advance, promote and facilitate engagement between citizens of the United States and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”

Mercy Corps spokesmen did not respond to requests from FOX News to interview Lindborg in connection with this article.

Mercy Corps and UNDP also have dealings with each other in a wide variety of countries. “We probably work with them in 20+ countries around the world,” says UNDP spokesman Morrison. Getting the exact number is difficult, as UNDP record keeping is highly decentralized. Much of the cooperation may not include major financial involvement.

For its part, Mercy Corps says it is receiving significant funding from UNDP in Liberia, southern Sudan, Kosovo and Indonesia, as well as on the Tumen River project.

In January, 2007, Mercy Corps, according to its website, merged with Net-Aid, a UNDP-funded Internet initiative to raise awareness and funds for poverty eradication around the world.
George Russell is executive editor of FOX News.

Monday, December 10, 2007

In a clandestine operation UNDP starts sending hundreds of computers to Kim Jong Il for Christmas.

In early December, when George W. Bush was signing his first Christmas Letter to Kim Jong Il, at the State Department people were already busy to find who might be out there willing to pay for some high-tech toys that Santa should bring this year to Kim Jong Il.

Given that computers are part of “luxury items” still barred to be shipped to North Korea, State Department’s search for someone willing to give money to a dictator (still on the list of terrorist sponsor states), was narrowing down every day. To the point that the search engine of the Organizations who Sponsor Terrorism, came with only one potential candidate:

Organization Name: United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Contact name: Kemal Dervis (Turkish)
Office to Charge: UNDP DPR Korea (PRK10)
Purchase Order: 0000000869 / 870
Supplier: International Master Trade Co.

The problem is that UNDP was & is under investigation for acting in the past 15 years as Kim’s ATM machine. But hey, if the President of the United States sends a Christmas Letter to Kim Jong Il, and Khalilzad is told to look the other way, who else out there would dare to go after UNDP?

Computers are a very important element, because Kim Jong Il wants to wrap-up the Christmas presents for his Politic-Bureau and other Military Elite.

So ... who can foot the bill for Kim’s presents to his followers ? Kemal Dervis will ! UNDP Will !

Despite its Executive Board’s decision not to re-open office and operations in North Korea until investigation is over, UNDP’s Kemal Dervis, eager to please, started a clandestine operation in close contact with the North Koreans and Ban Ki Moon's office, and purchased the only in Dec 2007 - 100 computers (desktops and laptops) and other gadgets


Disturbing is the fact that UNDP's Procurement Rules says that: - "every Procurement which goes beyond 30,000 limit should be sent for approval to Headquarters or Regional CPO" (Bryan Cook - Chief Procurement Officer – Bangkok). But UNDP in this case needed no approval from no body - despite the Purchase Orders value beyond 30,000.


One wonders how come Krishan Batra the Head of ACP in New York would allow something like this to pass? How come Bryan Cook the Regional Chief Procurement Officer in Bangkok would let this pass?





How can Kemal Dervis and Ad Melkert and Ban Ki Moon tell the world that UNDP operations are closed in North Korea - when in 2007 alone UNDP spent 1.4 million dollars in North Korea to run a clandestine operation? How can UNDP close books and projects, give assets back to North Koreans, and we still have more expenditures ? Who is being paid under this 1.4 Million and for what?

UNDP staff can no longer understand how our leaders can continue to leave in total status of denial.

  • How can UNDP continue to operate as if nothing is happening?
  • Does Kemal Dervis thinks that all staff are stupid and don't understand him and his Deputy?
  • Does Dervis know that at least 4000 staffers around the globe had and still have access to ATLAS and other databases and we can see ourselves the data?

Do our leaders think that:

- taking ACP off-line and not-allowing us and public to know about our past procurements;
- telling Fridakis & Friends to spy on UNDP staff worldwide by setting NSA/KGB like structures;
- telling Fridakis & Friends to destroy all past evidence in headquarters servers;
- destroying proof on hundreds of illegal and nonexistent SSAs hired in the past two years;

would all these go unnoticed? Oh no it will not.

But we will not say more for the moment – let’s wait and see the lies that Kemal Dervis would tell to UNDP's Spokesperson David Morrison so the poor guy can tell it to the media. David Morrison don't become the parrot of Kemal Dervis - let him go to the media himself and tell the truth.


We thank the staff cooperating with UNDP Watch - we know you all are running against major risks of being retaliated against. But the only way to held our management accountable is to make public all their miss-managements and corruptions.


UNDP Watch will continue to bring to light all the corruption of our managers wherever they are.

Wednesday, December 5, 2007

Keeping them accountable: In Pakistan, UNDP Awards No-Bid Contract For Disputed Election

The Pakistan election has been all over media lately. All of us have seen the unconstitutional way Musharraf used and managed to stay on as President. The rampant corruption in the current government has led to a major - throughout the country unrest - requesting Musharraf and his fellow governors to step down.

In all this mess - UNDP wouldn't stay away. How could UNDP ? We are there to "support our client" as Kemal Dervis always say.

Therefore now we will be looking at a fantastic way to dispose money to friends in a messy situation.

Today's Submission is : ACP-RBAP/07/0004
Total Amount: $ 915,636.00
Status: Approved from Akiko Yuge

(FROM INNERCITY PRESS) Even in Pakistan, a country beset by electoral disputes as well as terrorism, the UN Development Program bends its own rules, on issues as important as the provision of technical assistance to elections, as shown by an internal waiver of competition memo obtained by Inner City Press and placed online here.

Earlier this year, after General Pervez Musharraf announced elections, UNDP according to the memo decided it would "engage a recuritment [sic] agency to undertake hiring and provision of training coordinators for organizing training of polling officials workshops under Support to National Election Project (SNEP)." One part of the amorphous mandate claimed by UNDP is to preach transparency including in procurement: the solicitation and weighing of competitive bids before funds are spent. But in this case, on a project involving national elections, UNDP decided internally to waive its procurement rules, and award the $916,000 contract directly to Anjum Asim Shahid Associates (AASA). The scope of the contract, set forth in the memo, filled with typographical errors, includes

- Development of Recruitment [sic] plan and identification of coordinators [sic] through placing advertisement in the newspapers;
  • - Short listing of candidates and development of selection cirteria [sic]
  • - Conducting interviws [sic] in the field at major towns;
  • - Final selection and contract signing (between the firm and the sucessful [sic] candidates).

(Above from Innercity Press)

But why this ? Why spend all this money to train - those who have already broken the rule and unconstitutionally have changed the laws and protected an unconstitutional President ?

Well we think this award has nothing to do with Pakistan. This is a one time payment from UNDP to the Regime of Musharraf to accept back the outgoing Hafiz Pasha. UNDP can no longer continue to keep him around, specially with the latest failures on North Korea, Burma, Indonesia and Nepal.

But in a move that is typical only on hostile take-overs in private sector, the High Priests at UNDP have decided that Pasha should go, and at whatever price. Therefore let's give this money to whomever the Pakistani Government want to. Let the Pakistani's come out with the scheme, and UNDP would disburse on-time so Pasha's departure is secure.

Well yest again the Highest priests have forgotten that the UNDP's money is not their money. Is our money - is public tax-payers money. They have no right to dispose what millions of tax-payers have bestowed on us to invest on the poor - not in dictators.

UNDP money is not a slash fund where the High Priests put their hands whenever they need.

Kemal Dervis your leadership is destroying what is left to UNDP. Your decisions and those who surround you, are destroying our credibility in the world.

Stop it now !!!

p.s.: we would like to thank Innercity Press for their investigatory work on the above. We used portion of thier work. To read more on InnercityPress - please go at (http://innercitypress.com/)




Victory Nr.#3: Akiko Yuge cancels the 4.8 Million $ contract on IP-PBX

another major victory was achieved today thanks to UNDP Watch and all those staffers who helped identifying and halting this major corruption.

Today Akiko Yuge cancelled her previous approval of the above contract and sent it back to OIST for them to re-evaluate and make an open bid for the new IP-PBX.

Meanwhile Mr. Fridakis of OIST continue to clean-up the UNDP systems and install "big-brother software" everywhere. Mr. Fridakis forgets that in UNDP everything should be public and not hiden. All our finances generates from tax-payers money (member states) who have the constitutional right to demand where and how UNDP spend them. Mr. Fridakis should know that the same software that he is installing is watching himself too.

We would like to call on all UNDP staff world wide - to abandon the UNDP Global Survey. Fridakis and "friends" have installed a software that identifies the originator of all "comments". This is not the way to win the trust of staff in the "system". We need a real, transparent, independent Global Staff Survey system that is neither watched or "managed" from Fridakis and "friends".

Member states give us money to feed and help the poor, assist countries in transition make a difference in the lives of millions out there. Instead we are spending millions to build high-tech fortresses - as if we deal with drugs, arms and illegal sex trafficking. Do we ?

How can G77, ECOSOC, ACABQ, 5th Committee etc - allow that UNDP spends un-certified and unapproved funds into un-certified and un-planed activities ? Instead we should be spending this money on how to make our systems more transparent and user friendly - in order to ensure proper access to credit, funds and programmes for the poor. Fridakis is trying to cover his failure to produce a low-tech site which can be easily accessed from any country with poor Internet speeds. UNDP should focus more on how to bring our message beyond the capitals, to the villagers, to the border cities - make a real difference for the people.

Keep your files coming the only way to keep the High Priests accountable is to publish facts and real documents.

Let the member states and the public judge them.

Victory Nr.# 2: Kemal Dervis cancels the transfer of Ms. Rema Devi Purushothaman to Peri's shop

well thanks to all those who contributed from both units, today we achieved another major victory. Kemal Dervis (from wherever he is) called in and cancelled the irregular transfer of Ms. Rema Devi Purushothaman as Nr.2 of Peri Johnson at Legal.

But this is far from done - the so called parallel transfer of F.N. from Legal to Human Resources, to create room for Ramesh's wife - seem to have created a victim. The victim have applied for the job of Nr.2 at HR and gone through all the selection process. The victim thinks that catapulting F.N. to the Nr.2 of HR, only to satisfy the pleasures of Peri Johnson, without proper process is irregular and might go as far as to open a case with the newly appointed OIC of Ethics Office - Bhalla. We will be publishing very soon the whole process of selection of the Nr.2 of HR. Stay with us !!

This shows that if we try to keep the information flowing and denounce the nepotism, illegality and corrupt behaviours in our management, we will be able to keep them accountable and "clean".

This is a great victory for all of UNDP staff - we shown to the High Priest that there is democracy even in church.

Tuesday, December 4, 2007

GAP denounces the new SGB on Ethics

New UN Ethics Guidelines Greatly Misleading Whistleblower Retaliation Protections Weakened, Up to 15 Agencies May Enact Lower Standards

(Washington, D.C.) – The codification of ethics standards and policies for various UN agencies detailed in the December 1st bulletin issued by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon complicates and confuses the issue, creating an entirely new level of bureaucratic dispute, delay, cost and inefficiency for those who report corruption in UN operations and suffer retaliation as a result, in the opinion of the Government Accountability Project (GAP).

The policy in question is the United Nations System-Wide Application of Ethics: Separately Administered Organs and Programmes. The United Nations announced the new measure by stating: “Employees working in the Funds and Programmes of the United Nations are now covered by the same system of ethical protections and programmes as their colleagues in the UN Secretariat.” In fact, Ban Ki-moon’s new bulletin accomplishes exactly the opposite by effectively exempting the Funds and Programmes from the jurisdiction of the UN Ethics Office.

“This bulletin replaces a single Ethics Office, structurally independent of management in the Funds and Programs and responsible for applying a uniform set of ethical standards, with proliferating ad hoc internal ethics offices, operating at the pleasure of the heads of these agencies,” said Bea Edwards, GAP International Program Director.

In December 2005, then-UN Secretary General Kofi Annan issued a bulletin establishing an independent UN Ethics Office, with a staff responsible for receiving appeals from whistleblowers in need of relief from retaliation. As whistleblowers from UN Funds and Programs came forward, assuming they were protected by the 2005 bulletin, Ban Ki-moon allowed for ‘separately administered agencies’ to exempt themselves from the UN Ethics Office’s jurisdiction. Effectively the new Secretary General allowed agencies to opt-out of the agreed-upon ethical guidelines. Whistleblowers from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) who had reported serious corruption and fraud in their agency were badly hurt, as this inaction left them in legal limbo for nearly a year. Although the UNDP Administrator reports directly to the Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon has behaved as if he had no authority over UNDP.

With this latest development, the Secretary General sets out a second policy explicitly restricting the established Ethics Office to cases originating in the Secretariat and the peacekeeping forces, and relegating cases from UN Funds and Programs to recently, or not-yet, established ad hoc ethics offices in each agency. These new offices will hear retaliation cases according to yet-to-be-elaborated ethical standards, which will then be ‘harmonized’ by a UN Ethics Committee.

“This bulletin states that a committee will now negotiate definitions of ethics to be applied system-wide,” said Edwards. “Such a dubious process could take years and does not bring justice to whistleblowers. Nor does it protect them from retaliation or address the issue of corruption.

”The new bulletin is flawed by glaring omissions. First, it sets out no parameters for establishing the new ethics offices. To ensure objectivity, a credible ethics officer must have legal training in the field, be recruited by an objective search committee from outside the institution, and have a secure position not subject to dismissal or harassment. The offices must be adequately staffed with similarly secure and trained officers. Above all, ethics personnel must be insulated from internal pressure and retaliation themselves.

The already operational UN Ethics Office was set up in this manner, and could therefore evaluate whistleblower cases from the Funds and Programs with genuine impartiality. The 2005 policy protecting personnel from retaliation when reporting fraud and corruption also provides protection for witnesses, assurances of confidentiality, measures of interim relief, and modern burdens of proof. The new offices, to be set up in the next three to six weeks, will operate under no such obligations.

The new bulletin does allow whistleblowers from Funds and Programs who claim unfair treatment from the new internal ethics offices to subsequently appeal to the UN Ethics Office. But any measure that adds cost and delay to the investigation and hearing process seriously damages the position of the whistleblower, who, in many cases, is dismissed, demoted, marginalized and harassed without relief.

The number of UN “separately administered agencies” that will establish separate ethics offices is unclear at this point, but it could be as many as fifteen. Already the UNDP and World Food Program (WFP) have appointed ethics officers (without impartial search committees), and UNICEF and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) have also moved in this direction. With at least two legal professionals and support staff and infrastructure, the minimal cost per new office would be US$300,000 per year. The UN system is poised to assume extra costs of about $4.5 million per year for the purpose of avoiding the application of meaningful ethical standards.

The understanding of Christopher Burnham, the Under Secretary for Management who wrote the 2005 bulletin with technical assistance from GAP, was that the bulletin applied across the UN system. Likewise, a panel of independent jurists evaluating the UN justice system in 2006 strongly recommended that the Ombudsman’s offices be merged into a single system-wide jurisdiction. But when the UN Ethics Office designated a UNDP whistleblower as a victim of retaliation, UNDP Administrator Kemal Dervis declared that the Funds and Programs were not subject to the UN Ethics Office, effectively evading any future investigation.

“By allowing Dervis to retaliate with impunity, Ban Ki-moon is now promoting a Potemkin Village of costly ethics offices throughout the system without independence, credibility or standards,” said Edwards.

A copy of the new UN bulletin can be found on GAP’s Web site here: http://www.whistleblower.org/doc/2007/BKM%20Bulletin.pdf Government Accountability ProjectThe Government Accountability Project is the nation’s leading whistleblower protection organization. Through litigating whistleblower cases, publicizing concerns and developing legal reforms, GAP’s mission is to protect the public interest by promoting government and corporate accountability. Founded in 1977, GAP is a non-profit, non-partisan advocacy organization with offices in Washington, D.C. and Seattle, WA. #####

Monday, December 3, 2007

The Revolution is ON !!

Holding accountable a 6 billion dollars machine is not easy, it requires lots of efforts and lots of staff in order to hold UN's Ban Ki Moon and UNDP's Kemal Dervis accountable. But we are getting there.

Today the UNDP Watch is joining efforts with a reputable ethics and accountability fighter, Mr. Leon Kukkuk and his newest editions:

  1. UNDP Operations Watch : http://undpoperationswatch.blogspot.com/
  2. UN Management Review : http://unmanagementreview.blogspot.com/

UNDP Watch will continue to focus on exposing all internal UNDP corruption from top-to-bottom. Our Procurement series will continue on daily basis for almost 1400 days. Meanwhile, thanks to our friends at Human Resources, now UNDP Watch will also start a series of Human Resource Watch.

The Human Resource watch will focus on nepotism and irregular appointments at UNDP. We will explain with real evidence how outsiders makes it to enter from the "window at UNDP". We will expose all the "windows" and show you how to make it there. Just be patient.

We will show all National Staffers and Junior Professionals and UNVs around the world, how UNDP management have forgotten about them. We will show how racist the organization is when a National Staff or a UNV dares to apply for an international posts. We will show statistics on how many "outsiders" makes it to enter from the "windows" in positions that instead should be filled with National Staff, JPOs and or UNVs based on rotation policies.

Our ultimate goal is to :

(a) have all DRR positions filled with National Staff;

(b) have all ARR positions filled with National Staff;

(c) by end of January 2008 implement a freeze on external hiring and a clear policy within the UNDP on rotation of National Staff that have served for more than 2 (two) consecutive years at their home-duty-station.

(d) have all those at Headquarters who haven't served any country office duty be rotated by end of March 2008;

(e) have all those who are currently at D1 and above be re-evaluated through a transparent 360 degree evaluation - which gives subordinates to anonymously provide ratings for their supervisors;

To achieve all the above we call upon all UNDP staff ( at HQs and COs) to:

  • start download all documents, programmes, projects and operations data you are involved with;
  • check among them who are corrupt and who you think shouldn't be there;
  • if it's clear corruption send it to UNDP Watch and/or UNDP Operations Watch;
  • if it's about management corrupt behaviours and nepotism send it to UN Management Review;

All of us should contribute to make our work environment free of corruption and criminal managers. Therefore please copy as much as you can and bring it out so we can make it public. The tax-payers around the world need to know what UNDP is doing with their money. They need all data be made public now.

Don't be afraid of Kemal Dervis. The only way to win this war and restore credibility to our organization is to fight against these managers who think that the money bestowed on us is theirs and they can treat us and our Departments/Bureaux as their personal kingdoms.

Victory Nr. 1: forced by UNDPWatch undisputable facts - Kemal Dervis admits he lied about the servers

KEMAL DERVIS GO AWAY !! YOU ARE A LIAR !!

a Major Victory was achieved today towards holding United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) accountable. Thanks to UNDP-WATCH and the courage of the staffers who cooperate with us, the Kemal Dervis's spokesperson - David Morrison has finally come out and reneged in his first statements about the disappearance of the servers at FOX NEWS.

Today the FOX NEWS is running a Correction to the first story and reporting that Kemal Dervis and His Spokesperson David Morrison did lie about the content of those servers and how they were being handled.

Leave now Kemal Dervis and take with you all the corrupt officials you have around you.



------------------------------------------
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,314664,00.html
Correction: UNDP Accused of Coverup in North Korea Cash Funneling Scandal

Monday, December 03, 2007

In a Nov. 26 story entitled “UNDP Accused of Coverup in North Korea Cash Funneling Scandal,†UNDP gave incorrect information to FOX News regarding the contents of 11 computer servers that critics say are being disposed of as part of the alleged coverup. As reported in the story, UNDP spokesman David Morrison told FOX News that the servers, which UNDP has declared obsolete, had been used to host the organizations's "virtual directory" (phone book) and "contained no sensitive information."
After follow-up questions from FOX News, Morrison said that only one of the 11 servers hosted the directory. The others “were a combination of file/print servers and UNDP’s old intranet.†All information contained in the servers, he declared, “was migrated to other equipment to ensure that no information was lost.†The incorrect information, he told Fox News, had been provided inadvertently.
Click here to read the original story.

Sunday, December 2, 2007

UNDP awards Public Tax-payers money to Private Incorporated Companies in India - KEMAL DERVIS RESIGN NOW !!

UNDP Funds Invested in NISG, a private limited company which does not come under Indian Parliament control procedures and NISG's non transparent Activities, raising serious concerns about the credibility of the UNDP in India.

—————–Forwarded Message:
Subj: UNDP Funds Invested in NISG, a private limited company which does not come under Indian Parliament control procedures and NISG's non transparent Activities, raising serious concerns about the credibility of the UNDP in India.

Date: 11/9/2005 9:43:21 A.M. Pacific Standard Time


Mr. Kemal Dervis
Administrator
United Nations Development Programme One United Nations Plaza, New York, NY 10017 USATelephone: (212) 906 5317Fax: (212) 906 5364
kemal.dervis@undp.org

Dear Mr. Kemal Dervis,


Ref: UNDP Funds Invested in NISG, a private limited company which does not come under Indian Parliament control procedures and NISG's non transparent Activities, raising serious concerns about the credibility of the UNDP in India.


I am V. M. Kumaraswamy, a non resident Indian living in USA for the past 30 years. I am located in California, USA. I moderate India's largest e-governance yahoo-group under the title eGovINDIA.

You can reach this group at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/eGovINDIA eGovINDIA is a discussion group dedicated to promoting true e-governance in India, consisting of members from all walks of life from within INDIA and the World over. Many State Ministers and senior bureaucrats of India are members of this group. We do have lawyers, social activists, freelance writers and journalists in the group. The group is meant for serious activists only. Casual members are not allowed to join the group. The group is moderated by an Indian Administrative Service (IAS) Officer apart from me. As on date, the group has nearly 2200 members.


The focus of this group is true e-governance and use of open source technology in e-governance. The members of this forum have a passion to see a truly e-governed India, resulting in transparency and easy access to government services by the common man, notably the depressed class people (so called untouchables), women and people living in far flung and difficult areas of India.


Corruption is a stark reality in India. The recent reports put India in the worst category in corruption index. For the group members, e-governance means less corruption too.


The least we expect out of e-governance is transparency.


UNDP had come forward to promote e-governance in India in a large way. We are thankful to the UNDP's gesture. We are aware that UNDP had committed for the e-governance of India to the tune of $30 millions in the next three –four years. From the funds already provided by UNDP, a private limited company named National Institute of Smart Government (NISG) had been formed in a place called Hyderabad (nearly 1700 k.ms from Delhi). Under a Memorandum of Understanding between UNDP and the Government of India, the NISG had been formed. As per NISG's constitution, the company can never be a Government company. It would always remain a private limited company, away from the Controls of the Government.


So far, whatever money that had been used by NISG had come from UNDP only. No private partner had come forward to invest in it. NASSCOM, which is the largest private partner in NISG had not invested any amount in NISG, save for some software contribution which is unnecessary as open source software is available totally free of cost. UNDP had committed its $30 million to be spent only through the NISG. In short NISG means UNDP.


You must be aware that a private limited company in India cannot be supervised by the Indian parliament. For any Government sector company, the Indian Parliament has supervisory powers through its powerful Parliament Committees, such as the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). The Parliament's writ does not cover any Private limited company in India. Similarly any Government owned company comes under the supervision of Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) and the Central Bureau of Investigation (Federal Police). CBI is a powerful anti corruption police at the disposal of the Federal Government of India. But neither of these organizations has any role to play with regard to a private company such as NISG.


The Higher Judiciary, notably the High Courts and Supreme Court of India have writ jurisdictions in the case of State's roles. These are extra ordinary powers to check unlawful and corrupt activities where State's funds are involved. The higher judiciary's writ jurisdiction does not extend to the private companies.


In short NISG which had been formed under the auspicious of UNDP had been left free of any control mechanism in India to be handled by three – four bureaucrats in India.


Our concern with regard to NISG which is solely funded by UNDP goes beyond this.


True e-governance comes only through process automation based governance which calls for total involvement of the government machinery.


NISG had skirted this issue completely and has been championing the so called private public partnership (PPP). The PPP model promoted by NISG has been found to be a bill collection event so far, where the private partner collects the utility bills which does not involve any e-governance. This is tantamount to corruption in a sense as the funds meant for good governance / e-governance are being diverted for other purposes.


The PPP model goes against the egalitarian principle as this can never work in rural areas of India where 75% of India's population resides.


NISG had not commenced any effort so far in the last one year, involving process automation based e-governance which is the actual e-governance.


This is just one of our concerns and there are much more serious concerns pointing to corrupt activities involving NISG.
NISG is chaired by Mr.J.Satyanarayana, an IAS officer from Andhra Pradesh who had been found to be corrupt by an independent media – DATAQUEST.


Dataquest is one of the largest circulated IT magazines in India. This reputed magazine had found out that Mr.J.Satyanarayana had favoured only one company in majority of his decisions. The story goes back to his earlier days when he served as Secretary to Government in Andhra Pradesh. As Secretary to Government of Andhra Pradesh, Mr.J.Satyanarayana had cooperated in a scandal called e-seva. The Comptroller and Auditor General had adversely commented about this project stating that the selection procedure was not transparent. Records indicate that Mr.J.Satyanarayana has been promoting the same company (M/s Ram Infotech / CMS consortium) in other states. Notable among them is the Bangalore One project for which Mr.J.Satyanarayana and his NISG acted as Project Managers. For Bangalore One Project Mr.J.Satyanarayana had selected the very same consortium by fabricating the tender documents. These are serious allegations which may bring disrepute to UNDP in the days to come unless immediate and impartial action is taken to do course correction.


I also wish to bring to your notice about the funding made by NISG from out of UNDP funds during July, last year (2004). NISG had failed to host the details of the funding in its website. For that matter NISG has been revealing very little about what it does with its funding. Good governance through such implementing partners cannot be obtained by UNDP.


In the absence of the voluntary information from NISG we get information that the entire funding or the major portion had been given to nondescript NGOs for promotion of "good governance". No one knows the outcome of such funding. India needs such funds for true e-governance activities. But NISG under Mr.J.Satyanarayana does not seem to be interested in true e-governance.


There is a valid doubt that Mr.J.Satyanarayana might have chosen the agencies which are either related to him or just friends.
There are substantiated allegations (through Dataquest report) that NISG under the leadership of Mr.J.Satyanarayana had rigged the tenders using UNDP's funds. The authors of this scam had no reply when Dataquest had sought their response quoting specific details. It had also been confirmed through this report that Mr.J.Satyanarayana has been promoting a company called Pricewaterhouse Coopers (PWC) in all his dealings, ignoring canons of justice and fair play.


More details are available in the Dataquest website itself:
http://www.dqindia.com/content/DQTop20_05/BestEmployers2005/2005/105090203.asp
NISG has been promoting yet another company under the leadership of Mr.J.Satyanarayana. The name of the company is C1 India Limited. This company bagged a contract for E-PROCUREMENT through Mr.J.Satyanarayana when he was Secretary to Government, IT Department in Government of Andhra Pradesh. The tender was finalized by PWC on limited tender basis which is illegal. Commerce One India which subsequently became C1 India Limited was hand picked by Mr.J.Satyanarayana and the entire tender procedure was an eye wash. There are allegations that PWC, the pet partner of Mr.J.Satyanarayana conducted the tender evaluation for this project in its Mumbai office without any representation from Government of Andhra Pradesh which is a gross impropriety. The ultimate case of deceit can be found from the fact that the very same consultant - PWC, after choosing C1 India as the implementing company had joined them in the execution of the project in Andhra Pradesh itself. Consultant cannot join the implementing partner at all. This is barred in any international scheme of things. This is not permissible in India too.


As on date, C1 India and PWC jointly bid for the e-procurement contracts with various state governments all over India.
NISG has started promoting C1 India Limited along with PWC in other States in the area of e-procurement. Our latest information is that NISG has been persuading the Government of Karnataka to accept this duo for implementing e-procurement system in that State.
As all of us in India knew that NISG means UNDP. Any bad reputation accrued to NISG is directly attributed to UNDP.
Does UNDP want to earn the tag "Corrupt" through NISG?


This is a serious question to be addressed by you when you are in India.


Failure to promote open source software but very proactive in promoting Microsoft's proprietary technology:
Unlike the rest of the world and against the proclamation of UNDP that it would promote open source software in governments and public services, NISG has been consciously promoting Microsoft products only at a huge cost. To our knowledge, as on date, NISG had not taken up even a single open source software project. This is matter for your inquiry.


I am sure you would see the scheme behind formation of NISG by the bureaucrats who are in the helm of affairs of NISG today both at Hyderabad and in New Delhi. The Joint Secretary of Ministry of IT and e-governance in Government of India who is in the governing body of NISG is Mr.Chandrasekhar IAS.,
Mr.Chandrasekhar IAS., was a predecessor of Mr.J.Satyanarayana in Andhra Pradesh Government in the same department.
The two of them control the NISG fully. The two of them have configured the NISG as a totally control free private limited company.
We are all aware that Mr.Chandrasekhar has the final say in permitting or not permitting UNDP to invest in developmental activities in India.


What are the reasons behind creating NISG in this way is a question that has to be looked into by you during your stay in India.
To part with, I wish to bring to your notice that the Government of India's budget for e-governance spending in the next five years is expected to be Rs.25,000 crores ( one billion dollars). The world bank had already committed US $ 500 millions recently. Right now it is expected that NISG would play a major role in spending this money!


Whose money is it anyway?


It is the public money that is proposed to be routed through NISG which is out of the controls of Government of India, save for the supervision of two or three bureaucrats whose integrity is grossly suspect.


So far, the officials of UNDP in Delhi had failed to look into the long term implications of these corrupt deviations in terms of the credibility of UNDP.


The very fact that the claim of the officials of NISG that they had looked into the complaints against them and found them to be unsubstantiated shows that things are not happening the way UNDP would like it to happen.


UNDP cannot be a mute spectator anymore.


UNDP has to seek withdrawal of its association from NISG. It would be just and proper for UNDP to realign with a Government of India organization such as National Informatics Centre (NIC) which is fully under the control and supervision of the Indian parliament.
This would save the name of the UNDP for the time being and in the long run too.


I hope I have made things clear for you to do the follow up.


Thanks.
V.M.Kumaraswamy, MBA
949-857-8578 and 714-357-0206


USEFUL LINKS for UNDP.


NISG has been incorporated as a not-for-profit Company under Section 25 of the Companies Act, at Hyderabad on the 28th of May 2002.

The following is the important corporate information.

Bitter and twisted old men (by Leon Kukkuk)



Saturday, 1 December 2007
http://letterstogabriella.blogspot.com/

Bitter and twisted old men
The Laurel and Hardy of the Development world, messrs. Kemal Dervis and Ad Melkert has sent a very clear message as to exactly what they think of Office of the Under Secretary for Management at the United Nations in its efforts to improve internal oversight and transparency.

On 19 December 2005 when the Secretary-General issued the bulletin “Protection against retaliation for reporting misconduct and for cooperating with duly authorized audits or investigations” (SGB/2005/21), it seemed as if the United Nations was finally on track in applying common sense best practices in whistleblower protection.

However, since that time, UNDP senior management has made it apparent that they believe quite clearly that they can opt out of the whistleblower protection policy and reject Ethics Office findings, thus causing serious concerns regarding the effective implementation of the policy.

In a letter to the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the Government Accountability Project (GAP) expressed these concerns:“The “UN Delivering as One” initiative cannot be achieved with each unit applying a different set of ethical standards, nor can “One UN” be implemented at the country level if led by a UNDP that insists on its own institutional autonomy in the face of General Assembly resolutions.”Instead of Ban Ki-moon using his authority to point out to the UNDP management that the bulletin (SGB/2005/21) was issued in accordance with a General Assembly instruction to apply to the whole of the UN system, he allowed UNDP to come up with its own set of rules.UNDP promptly instructed their feather weight Legal Support Office to come up with an Updated “UNDP Legal Framework For Addressing Non-Compliance With Un Standards Of Conduct” dated 20 September 2007.

GAP responded in some detail to this amateurish piece of nonsense but failed to reiterate clearly enough that above all else it is a document that is functionally illegal.The one issue that is particularly revealing of the prevailing mentality of UNDP’s top management is contained in “Section 2 - Scope of Application” specifically point “2.2 - To Whom The Present Document Does Not Apply.”It goes on to state that “6. The present document does not apply to:” and then excluding all seconded staff members, independent contractors, employees under Service Contracts, interns, volunteers, employees without a UNDP letter of appointment, independent contractors under Special Service Agreements and some locally recruited staff.In other words, excluding exactly the sort of people most likely to raise concerns. Only regular staff can rely on any sort of protection. As a rule regular staff at UNDP only become regular staff once they have amply demonstrated that they are compliant and unlikely to complain.

The report also imposes restrictions on external disclosures, in favour of disclosure directly to the Administrator, thus turning this person into judge, jury, prosecutor, defended and executioner all in one. It also promotes the fallacy that the Director of the Office of Audit and Performance Review (OAPR) would actually and impartially investigate reports of wrongdoing.I have no experience of this office doing any such a thing – ever.

As part of its pious promises the report suggests that:“27. In the event that the staff member fears retribution or retaliation as a consequence of reporting to his or her supervisors, he or she should report the matter to OAPR (by email: hotline@undp.org ; or by telephone: UNDP fraud hotline voicemail system: ((Worldwide)) +l 212 906 5050).30. Except when an allegation is made anonymously, the individual reporting the allegations will receive an acknowledgement from the office to which the allegations were reported.”Therefore I wrote to this office. The least I could hope for was an acknowledgement from the office that they had received my correspondence, as promised:

From: Leon Kukkuk Sent: 26 November 2007 09:02
To: 'hotline@undp.org'
Cc: 'Ellen Gardner'; 'matthew.lee@innercitypress.com'
Subject: FW: [Fwd: Defamatory use of online service: http://www.publishedauthors.net/leonkukkuk/events.html]

Failure by UNDP to adequately address the habit of its staff to lie, threaten and deceive.

Dear Madam/Sir,

Please refer to the message from Stephen Kinloch at the end of this correspondence.I had responded to Stephen Kinloch in substantial detail regarding the issues that he had raised and requested clarification regarding the action he intends taking.

More than a year has now passed since his threat of “severe measures” and he still has neither followed up on this nor provided an explanation for his threats. A brief promise of a much belated OIOS investigation also failed to produce the slightest hint of a possible solution.

This is an issue that remains relevant for the following reasons:
  • · The actions taken against me by UNDP staff has been devastating and the consequences are ongoing to the present day.
  • · The same criminals that I had identified as involved in fraud remain employed with UNDP and continue to fail to adhere to the “highest standards of efficiency, competence and integrity.”
  • · Fraud and corruption within UNDP remain systemic, systematic and co-ordinated.
Management at all levels continue to act in the best interest of the criminals employed at the organisation. As things stand at the moment the only way to deal with UNDP is to make public at every opportunity the nature and extent of criminality within the organisation and to continuously inform the public and donors about the real motivations behind UNDP management decisions.

Even though I believe the making of threats to be grossly inappropriate behaviour by international civil servants, I nevertheless expect them to either follow through on these threats or provide an explanation or apology for having made them.Stephen Kinloch has done neither.UNDP has provided no explanation for this behaviour by one of its managers.

I do not consider the fact that UNDP employs cowards and condone cowardly behaviour as sufficient justification for this attitude.Could I request you to please correct the present state of affairs?

Best Wishes.

Leon Kukkuk

-------- Mensagem Original --------Assunto: Defamatory use of online service: http://www.publishedauthors.net/leonkukkuk/events.html

Remetente: stephen.kinloch-pichat@undp.org
Data: Fri, 24 Novembro 2006 00:03
Para: leonkukkuk@publishedauthors.net

Dear Mr. Kukkuk,

It has just come to my attention that my name, together with that of several colleagues who either work or have worked for the United Nations (UN) and the United Nations Devlopment Programme (UNDP) in Angola or elsewhere, is mentioned in hidden (but searchable and readable) text, together with defamatory terms such as 'fraud' or 'corruption' in your webpage:http://www.publishedauthors.net/leonkukkuk/events.html

As you are probably aware, the use of a computer or online service to defame a person carries with it severe potential liability, including for any related claims, proceedings, damages, injuries, liabilities,losses, costs, and expenses.

Therefore, I would like to kindly request you to immediately and completely delete all personal reference, whether hidden or visible, to my name and that of other colleagues from the above mentioned website, and any other website that you may have published.I have already alerted PublishedAuthors.Net.

In order to avoid further measures, I would appreciate your acknowledging receipt of this email and confirming that you have made taken appropriate corrective action.

Yours sincerely,
Stephen Kinloch
Advisor,
Strategic PlanningOffice
of the Resident Coordinator
United Nations - Port-au-Prince
_________________________________

To date no acknowledgement had been received from this office. Makes one wonder what they think of their own rules, or more pertinently, of people who have the audacity to complain.

The Purpose of the “UNDP Legal Framework For Addressing Non-Compliance With Un Standards Of Conduct” has absolutely nothing to do with dispensing justice.It is simply a roundabout way for UNDP management to declare that at UNDP there will be no justice –ever.Management will continue to lie, delay, intimidate and threaten.

If this does not work then, quite simply, the feather weight Legal Support Office will be co-opted to come up with yet another new set of “rules.”At UNDP the management has obviously sat down and done a cost/benefit analysis.

They realised that no matter how embarrassing their stonewalling tactics are, how much it harms their credibility, it is still preferable to allowing the full extent and scope of UNDP dysfunction to become public.

Consider “Section 4 - Prohibition of Retaliation against Outside Parties:”“50. Any retaliatory measures (including threats) against a contractor or its employees, agents or representatives, or any other individual engaged in dealings with UNDP because such person has reported allegations of wrongdoing by a staff member will be considered misconduct that, if established, will lead to administrative and/or disciplinary action.”

Imagine the following, very typical, scenario:

You are a senior manager at UNDP, in charge of some outpost somewhere about which you know absolutely nothing and in whose culture you have no interest whatsoever.

For a number of months you had designed all manner of convoluted and complicated programmes and projects. They all involve a staggering number of UN agencies, NGO’s, businesses and government departments.

Their complexity belies the fact that accounting and audit procedures are either non-existent or at best inadequate.

A labyrinth of duplicate and often contradictory reporting procedures quickly create even more confusion.

None of the senior managers have any clarity with regard to their mandates or responsibilities.

Lies, delays and obfuscation further prevent anybody from asking too many questions.

One or two compliant local staff members with political connections keep nosey local politicians at bay, either through intimidation or by paying them off.

You are convinced that nobody will notice the steady steam of public funds flowing into your bank account in Panama.

Neither will they notice the number of sub-contracts issued to companies and NGO’s that just happen to belong to your wife, family or close friends. Granted things do not always run smoothly.

In 2005 the UNDP administrator, the very sympathetic and supportive Mark Malloch Brown, departed suddenly to go and hold the hand of his friend Kofi Annan, embroiled in the Oil-for-Food scandal. Much is being made about the fact that Mr. Brown is being replaced by a real development professional, Kemal Dervis.Real development priorities may prove somewhat problematic for your own carefully constructed projects, in which you had invested so much effort.

Then, no sooner had Kemal Dervis indicated that at UNDP it is business as usual when the impetuous new Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, promised an independent review of all Programmes and Funds.Fortunately even this potential threat soon passed as the independent review was reduced to only an audit of North Korea before dissipating altogether.Imagine now that out of the blue there appears some UNV or independent contractor asking all manner of pertinent and impertinent questions.

Do you:

  • Graciously refrain from taking any retaliatory action against this individual since you are kindly requested to do so by the “UNDP Legal Framework For Addressing Non-Compliance With UN Standards Of Conduct” or
  • Retaliate against this individual since the same “UNDP Legal Framework For Addressing Non-Compliance With UN Standards Of Conduct” makes it quite clear that this individual has no protection or recourse under UNDP rules?

Posted by Leon Kukkuk @ http://letterstogabriella.blogspot.com/