Is the U.N. Corrupt?


By http://www.nysun.com/authors/Benny+Avni Benny Avni
January 14, 2008
The New York Sun
Original Source: http://www.nysun.com/article/69431?page_no=1


Is the http://www.nysun.com/related_results.php?term=United+Nations \o United Nations United Nations a corrupt organization?
The question — and answers from some top officials who do protest too much, methinks — arises out of a discussion about one of the most successful cleanup acts Turtle Bay has ever put together. Known as the Procurement Task Force, this oversight unit recently almost became a victim of its own success.
The task force emerged victorious, with its budget intact for another year and a plan to make it a permanent overseer of white-collar misdeeds at Turtle Bay. But some U.N. officials and member states consider the task force a waste of money that makes the organization look bad and sanctions the harassment of its officials.
One of the task force's targets, http://www.nysun.com/related_results.php?term=Sanjaya+Bahel \o Sanjaya Bahel Sanjaya Bahel, is scheduled to be sentenced today at a federal court downtown after he was convicted on fraud and corruption in June 2007. The former procurement officer's trial exposed how incredibly easy it was for mid- and high-level bureaucrats to barter U.N. contracts for personal luxuries like a plush Manhattan apartment — and do so with impunity.
So much impunity, in fact, that the internal U.N. watchdog, the http://www.nysun.com/related_results.php?term=OIOS \o OIOS Office of Internal Oversight Services, initially cleared Bahel of the allegations against him. Such botched OIOS investigations led a former management chief, Christopher Burnham, in May 2005 to set up a separate team of can-do investigators headed by an American, http://www.nysun.com/related_results.php?term=Robert+Appleton \o Robert Appleton Robert Appleton, tasked with probing allegations of widespread corruption within the procurement department.
The United Nations later suspended eight procurement officers, including Bahel, though they remained on the payroll. The highest-ranked among them was an assistant secretary-general, http://www.nysun.com/related_results.php?term=Andrew+Toh \o Andrew Toh Andrew Toh. The allegations against the Singaporean national included the facilitation of a helicopter purchase from the Peruvian government for use in the U.N. peacekeeping operation in East Timor. Singaporean officials have accused the task force of treating Mr. Toh unfairly, and the Asian nation launched a campaign to end funding for the task force that almost succeeded. To further its cause, Singapore relied heavily on the findings of the http://www.nysun.com/related_results.php?term=Joint+Disciplinary+Committee \o Joint Disciplinary Committee Joint Disciplinary Committee — a U.N. referee of a sort — which cleared Mr. Toh of any misconduct in his work, including in the Peruvian helicopters case, as the Singaporean U.N. mission's Web site put it.
That sounds almost like an exoneration, but it overlooks some other JDC findings, including those cited in a letter from http://www.nysun.com/related_results.php?term=Asha-Rose+Migiro \o Asha-Rose Migiro Deputy Secretary-General Asha-Rose Migiro to Mr. Toh on October 15, 2007. The JDC, she told him, found that in facilitating the helicopter deal, you have clearly failed in your responsibilities, and while such failings could not be considered reckless disregard, they nevertheless constituted negligence in performing your general and special responsibilities.
And yes, as Ms. Migiro noted in her letter, the JDC also found that Mr. Toh's actions did not constitute misconduct. Mr. Toh's suspension was duly lifted, but his failure to cooperate with the task force and negligence in filling a disclosure form led the JDC to recommend sanctions beyond censure against him. Mr. Toh was demoted in rank and pay scale, without the opportunity for future promotion.
Beyond individual cases, the procurement task force has examined contracts valued at $1.4 billion, of which it found that more than $600 million was tainted with corruption, as the current OIOS chief, http://www.nysun.com/related_results.php?term=Inga-Britt+Ahlenius \o Inga-Britt Ahlenius Inga-Britt Ahlenius, told reporters last week. After those findings were reported by the Washington Post's Colum Lynch, the U.N. brass attempted to fight back, arguing that $600 million does not represent a real loss for the organization.
The amount which has been the subject of procurement fraud was sort of an aggregate sum, not the fraud itself, so there were some exaggerations and incorrect reporting, Secretary-General Ban said at a recent press conference.
We're not in it to exaggerate, Mr. Appleton told reporters last week. Corruption, he said, doesn't mean just a monetary loss. If a vendor bribes a U.N. official, gains insight into the procurement process, and then lowers a bid to win a lucrative contract, the U.N. loses no money, but what about its reputation and the integrity of its methods?
Under Mr. Ban, to the secretary-general's credit, the pendulum has begun swinging from Turtle Bay's idolizing its secrecy culture, to stressing, as he put it, transparency and accountability. As Ms. Ahlenius noted, OIOS reports are now available to governments upon request. She also recommended making them available to the public at large. Good idea. The more money U.N. member states invest in oversight and transparency, the easier it will be for U.N. officials to argue that their organization is not corrupt.
bavni@nysun.com