Inner City Press -- Investigative Reporting From the United Nations to Wall Street to the Inner City

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, November 26 -- A full week ago, Inner City Press asked the UN for its response to Uganda complaining about delay in reimbursement for its three helicopters destroyed in Kenya on the way to the peacekeeping mission in Somalia, for which the UN pays:

Inner City Press: Uganda is complaining that its three helicopters that were destroyed in 2012 on the way to AMISOM (African Union Mission in Somalia), that they have not been compensated by the UN for them and they say they are still waiting for that. What’s the delay, it’s been a year and three months now, what’s the procedure for compensating countries for destroyed materiel and what’s the problem in this case?

Acting Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq: Well, we’ll have to check with… as you know, there is a [United Nations Support Office for the African Union Mission in Somalia], called UNSOA for short, and we’ll have to check with UNSOA how that particular payment is being handled through the Support Office. You might also want to check with the African Union about whether they can confirm any sort of payment for AMISOM.

  Now after seven days, the UN has responded with this, that they are not paying:

Subject: Your question on Ugandan helicopters
From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Date: Tue, Nov 26, 2013 at 10:18 AM
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com

Regarding your question on Ugandan helicopters, we have the following from the Department of Peacekeeping Operations:

“The helicopters in question were being provided by the Government of Uganda to the African Union Mission in Somalia, AMISOM. In line with established procedures, the Member State is to bear the risk of loss or damage to the aircraft and to insure against these. DPKO-DFS understands that the African Union has communicated this situation to the Government of Uganda.”.

  From public report it seems clear Uganda does not understand or agree with this. This, and building up big arrears to Troop Contributing Countries like Rwanda, Nigeria, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan, raises questions. We'll have more on this. Watch this site.