Clouds gather over UN weather agency

Adam Beaumont
May 7, 2007
Swissinfo
Original Source: http://www.swissinfo.org/eng/front/detail/Clouds_gather_over_UN_weather_agency.html?siteSect=105&sid=7791733&cKey=1178539895000

Switzerland is pushing for an overhaul of the way the scandal-hit World Meteorological Organization (WMO) is run.
The United Nations body, which opened its 15th congress in Geneva on Monday, is currently battling allegations of fraud and corruption.
 
The congress, which determines WMO policy, takes place only once every four years and the Swiss government is submitting a resolution aimed at increasing transparency.

The resolution, which will be tabled by Daniel Keuerleber-Burk, director of the Federal Meteorology and Climatology Office (MeteoSwiss), demands that the 188 member states play a more active role in the management of WMO affairs.

Even though congress is the WMO's governing body, the organisation is effectively run by a 37-strong executive council that acts independently of the member states. Countries are even denied access to council meetings.

The member states have very little influence during the inter-congress period and they receive only limited information on what's going on – especially if they don't have a national on the executive council, Alex Rubli, head of international affairs at MeteoSwiss, told swissinfo.
 
Strange situation
 
The Swiss resolution contains two proposals: to allow member states to sit as observers on the executive council and take part in discussions; and to grant them access to all documents issued by the executive council and the WMO's finance committee.

At the moment if member states really try, they can get access to documents, but it's not in the basic rules of the WMO that they should have access. It's quite a strange situation, he said.

Rubli insisted the Swiss drive for greater transparency had no direct connection with the ongoing corruption and fraud cases, adding that the resolution was not aimed at the WMO's management but rather at rewriting the rulebook.

But he did concede that the investigations had cast a cloud over the UN body.

As far as Switzerland is concerned, it is a very important organisation because all the achievements in climate monitoring and improving weather forecasts couldn't be achieved without the international cooperation that is organised by the WMO, said Rubli.

In this respect we are extremely interested in a well-organised WMO, and of course this fraud case damages its reputation.
 
Corruption allegations
 
Last week the WMO's chief auditor, who was sacked in November last year, launched criminal proceedings in New York alleging corruption over the election of secretary-general Michel Jarraud in 2003.

On Sunday the NZZ am Sonntag newspaper revealed that Geneva's public prosecutor had launched a separate investigation into allegations of fraud and vote-rigging concerning the election. Jarraud has strongly denied any wrongdoing.

The investigation is said to be linked to an earlier Swiss probe into allegations that SFr4.3 million ($3.6 million) was embezzled by a Sudanese employee at the WMO. 

At the request of the Swiss authorities, the [WMO] secretariat has provided them with detailed information relating to election procedures in WMO and to the elections in 2003, WMO spokeswoman Carine Richard-Van Maele told Reuters.