Senior Official Claims Bias in UN Contracts Probe Thalif Deen January 26, 2006 Inter Press Service News Original Source: http://www.ipsnews.org/news.asp?idnews=31928 UNITED NATIONS, Jan 26 (IPS) - Andrew Toh of Singapore, a U.N. assistant secretary-general who has been placed on special leave with full pay while his office is under investigation, has implicitly accused the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) of discrimination on grounds of nationality. Whether nationality plays a part in this crude discriminatory practice, as reported in some quarters, is a matter of speculation at this stage although this sort of treatment of Singaporeans in the U.N. is not without precedence, he said. A preliminary investigation by OIOS of potential abuse relating to U.N. contracts has resulted in eight officials being placed on special leave with full pay -- four from the Department of Management and four from the Department of Peacekeeping Operations.. Toh, the highest-ranking Singaporean in the Secretariat, is the head of the Office of Central Support Services (OCSS) which comes under the Department of Management. One U.N. source told IPS that Toh has been suspended not so much for wrongdoing but for permitting wrongdoing under his watch. At the same time, he said, no senior official from the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) has been suspended, even though four of its staffers are also on special leave. The highest-ranking U.N. official at the Office of Mission Support in DPKO is a U.S. national. Asked for his comments, Singapore's Permanent Representative to the United Nations Ambassador Vanu Gopala Menon told IPS: By all accounts, the OIOS report deals primarily with procurement actions by the DPKO. I also understand that the DPKO was authorised to conduct most procurement activities independently. Unfortunately, he said, the media reports and the briefings given by the U.N. Secretariat have given the impression that all procurement activities were centralised in the Office of Central Support Services. So, it is a surprise to me that while a senior officer of the Department of Management has been placed on administrative leave, no equally senior DPKO officer has been similarly treated. This leads to questions about unequal treatment, he said. U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq told IPS he will not have any specific comment on Toh's letter which is not one that has been officially received at the U.N. As a general comment, however, I can say that the eight people were put on 'special leave', which is an administrative and not disciplinary action, he added. Haq also said the United Nations was troubled by the findings of the audit and felt that in order to avoid any perception of impropriety while the audit was being finalised and any subsequent investigation is ongoing, it was best to place a number of staff members on special leave with full pay. Addressing reporters Monday, U.N. Under-Secretary-General for Management Christopher Burnham said: These measures are administrative, not disciplinary, and they fully respect the due process rights of the staff members concerned and do not presume any wrongdoing. He said the investigations had raised a number of serious allegations and concerns about U.N. procurement practices. Clearly, I think the potential abuse could go into tens of millions of dollars, involving about 200 different reports of abuse. The abuses relate mostly to U.N. supplies and services -- both in the Department of Management and the DPKO. In a letter published in the Singapore Straits Times Monday, Toh said: Having served the U.N. faithfully and honestly for over 25 years with a number of unique achievements on record, it pains me to wash our proverbial dirty linen in public. But given the blatant discriminatory nature of the event, and as the first career person from Singapore to have reached this level of seniority in the U.N., I have every intention to continue to fight for the truth to prevail and to restore the good name of Singapore and Singaporeans, he added. Asked to respond to charges of discrimination, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric told reporters Wednesday: Mr. Burnham explained to you that there were a number of people put on special leave, which is an administrative rather than disciplinary issue. We will not speak about specific names or cases from here. In his letter, Toh said the OIOS report contained a litany of observations involving wrongdoings, including fraud in procurement activities in various peacekeeping missions and the requisitioning of items not required in field operations. Peacekeeping operations and all associated staff are under the exclusive management responsibility of the assistant secretary-general and the under-secretary-general of the DPKO, he explained. My office does not determine what is needed or not needed in field operations or for the management of their staff or their inventory. Furthermore, since the mid-1990s (prior to my arrival at the United Nations in New York), DPKO had been given delegated authority to conduct procurement activities in the field up to a pre-determined dollar value, Toh wrote. Requisitions for materials beyond the threshold are authorised and certified by DPKO management in U.N. headquarters as bona fide mission requirements before they are submitted for international competitive bidding. Therefore, the question my colleagues in OCSS and I have been asking so far without any response from our management is why we were singled out to account for activities beyond our management purview. What is more disturbing is the fact that no senior managers in DPKO were held accountable for the activities of their personnel and the missions they directly supervise, as observed in the OIOS draft report, the letter said. The highest-ranking DPKO official placed on special leave was a chief administrative officer of a field mission overseas. As Assistant Secretary-General, I am therefore the highest-ranking official subjected to this administrative action, although I have no control whatsoever over the staff and activities of peacekeeping missions, Toh pointed out. He said it also remains a mystery as to how the removal of my colleagues and I in OCSS from duties for the duration of further investigations into peacekeeping-mission activities, while leaving the senior managers in DPKO to continue their direct management of these missions, is construed to be 'in the best interest of the organisation'. Surely, any attempts to foil investigations will be carried out by those involved rather than those who are not, he added. Ambassador Menon told IPS: I also understand that the staffers placed on administrative leave have not been given a copy of the OIOS report. This strikes me as unfair because how are they to defend themselves if they do not know the charges against them. This is particularly salient because the issue, with names and all, is now in the press, Menon added. Addressing problems in the U.N. system is a goal we all share. But, we should not lose sight of the process when doing so. Standards and measures need to be applied fairly and equally for such efforts to have any credibility or effectiveness, he added.