UN's Dollar-a-Year Sportsman Lemke May Be Moonlighting, As With Blair, UN Won't Say
By Matthew Russell Lee 
March 21, 2008
The Inner City Press 
Original Source: http://www.innercitypress.com/un1sports032108.html
UNITED NATIONS, March 21 -- With much fanfare this week, the UN http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2008/sga1128.doc.htm announced that Ban Ki-moon was appointing Wilfried Lemke of Germany as his Special Adviser on Sport for Development and Peace, serving on a $1 per year salary with the rank of Under-Secretary-General. Lemke quickly said he wanted to travel to China, and that if he wanted to go to Tibet, he could not imagine China objecting. Ban's spokesperson Michele Montas was asked, do you know if he'll be visiting Tibet? She answered, Not that I know of.
            Perhaps Lemke was distracted. At the http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs/2008/db080317.doc.htm UN's noon briefing on March 20, Inner City Press asked Ban's spokesperson a simple question, if Lemke is http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/193486,new-un-sports-envoy-to-visit-china-sees-tibet-as.html still going to be serving as an elected official in Bremen during his service.  Is he full time or is he still an official of Bremen State in Germany?
            Ms. Montas replied, As you know, he's a $1-a-year person... We'll find out for you.  Or we'll put you in contact with his press people. 
            Thirty-four hours later, no answer had been provided, no even a contact to Lemke's (or the Bremen legislature's) press people. Frankly, it's a UN question: if and when UN envoys, particularly at the Under-Secretary General level, hold outside jobs, what safeguards are put in place to avoid conflicts of interest? The UN is getting more and more cavalier in refusing to answer this question. When http://www.innercitypress.com/unblairchase011008.html Inner City Press asked about Middle East Quartet envoy Tony Blair's many outside jobs, including with JPMorgan Chase, Ms. Montas said to ask Tony Blair. There has still been no answer on any safeguards. But it does not seem to much to ask that the UN be able to state if its Special Advisers hold other jobs, and where. 

Lemke gives a lecture in Bremen: post the posture
   It has been http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/193486,new-un-sports-envoy-to-visit-china-sees-tibet-as.html reported thathttp://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/193486,new-un-sports-envoy-to-visit-china-sees-tibet-as.html Lemke, who is also a Bremen state politician, currently senator for internal affairs and sport in the northern city, succeeds http://www.innercitypress.com/unhq110306.html Adolf Ogi of Switzerland. But the http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2008/sga1128.doc.htm UN's press release says that from 1999-2008, he served as Senator of Interior and Sport of the German State of Bremen, as well as Senator for Education and Science. Note the use of the past tense, served. Which is it? We'll see.
Footnote: between http://www.innercitypress.com/unhq110306.html Ogi and Nicolas Michel leaving as head of the UN Office of Legal Affairs, after admitting to http://www.innercitypress.com/un2subsidymichel031708.html receiving housing subsidies from the Swiss Government which are not disclosed on his public financial disclosure form for 2006, Switzerland is down two posts. With Germany getting sports, one wonders about those saying that Germany Joaquim Rucker, currently embroiled in Kosovo, might take over the Department of Management. When it rains, it pours...