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At UN, Irregularities and Corruption Within
Investigative Unit OIOS Are Alleged, Unit's Chief Ms Ahlenius Declines
All Comment
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
November 28 -- The UN's
investigative and oversight chief Inga-Britt Ahlenius is being accused
of
systemic mismanagement and favoritism in a letter from her staff,
copied to
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and all staff of her Office of Internal
Oversight
Services.
The letter
was sent on November 26, and on November 28 in the UN's
Vienna Cafe Inner City Press gave an opportunity to comment to Ms.
Ahlenius,
who has refused to answer questions submitted to her in August and
again in
October, nor to hold a press conference.
Ms. Ahlenius acknowledged receiving the letter, said
she had no comment
but that it had been forwarded to all OIOS staff.
Among the
charges in the letter, which is reproduced below, is that Ms. Ahlenius
bends
and breaks the rules in order to put her cronies in the top
investigative
positions. The problem may go beyond favoritism. Corruption is allowed
to
flourish once an organization or department dispenses with the checks
and
balances of rotating people who do not know each other well into
positions
overseeing each other's work.
This is
particularly true with an agency which is
supposed to be auditing and investigating a wider system, as was
recently seen in exposes of the nepotism and favoritism in Citigroup's
risk management department before that bank's fall. How the UN's Ban
Ki-moon
and his human resources officials Angela Kane and Catherine Pollard
respond and move to change OIOS will be a test of their commitment to
good governance.
Questions
have mounted about Ahlenius' terms at OIOS. A finding of corruption at
the UN
Pension Fund was never acted on, nor was the cover-up explained. Human
Rights Watch and even the BBC
have issued blistering criticism of Ahlenius'
OIOS' cover-up of allegations of abuse by UN peacekeepers in the Congo.
An
investigative audit of the UN's $250 no-bid contract with Lockheed
Martin for
super camps in Darfur, which the General
Assembly's Fifth (Budget) Committee demanded
Ahlenius do eleven months ago has still
not been completed, or at least made
public.
More
recently the Fifth Committee has began discussing replacing
Ahlenius. Some opine that the irregularities in hiring and placing
Ahlenius
allies throughout OIOS is an attempt to cover-up the fruits Ahlenius'
untransparent reign even after she leaves.
The staff whistleblower
letter cites
"[a]nother example of your
poor leadership is
the lack of your attention to management of the Investigations Division
which has
remained unresolved for several years now. While a temporary appointee
holds
the position of Director, it appears to many that he is only a
"placeholder."
Many believe you may be thinking of appointing the chairman of the OIOS
Procurement Task Force [Robert Appleton] to this position late this
year. Should this occur, OIOS
staff will not be surprised if such a manipulation takes place because
this
pattern of ignoring United Nations established procedures has become a
hallmark
of your tenure as Under Secretary General. Unless a legitimate vacancy
management exercise is carried out, once again OIOS will be criticized
for
abiding by the double standards we often criticize our clients about."
That the UN
system's ultimate chief of accountability would herself be so
unaccountable
moves irony to outrage. More than a year ago, a whistleblower
in Ms. Ahlenius'
unit provided Inner City Press with evidence that Ahlenius was
trying to get a
crony, Danielle Coolen, a job in the UN. Inner
City Press gave Ahlenius a chance to comment on her e-mail, but
she declined. The story was raised to
Ban Ki-moon's office, but nothing was ever done.
OIOS' Ahlenius in last press conference 11
months ago, with PTF's Appleton
Likewise,
she declines to answer the following questions, posed in August and
then October:
Ms. Ahlenius -- Here are four
questions about OIOS / you to which responses on deadline will
be appreciated:
1) OIOS' involvement in the
UNIC-Toyko matters, with a shift in focus from financial improprieties
exposed
by Ms. Koda to a review of Ms. Koda herself, is described by some as
the use of
OIOS for retaliation against a whistleblower. Your response or comment?
2) Please separately confirm or
deny that (a) an OIOS investigator sent to the DR Congo is alleged to
have
consorted with one or more prostitutes; (b) two other OIOS staffers
raised this
as a problem; (c) that the first investigator states that since it was
only one
prostitute, it is his girlfriend, and (d) that the two
are now facing reviews of themselves / retaliation.
3) Regarding yourself, please
deny or confirm that following recent events between yourself and a
subordinate, the subordinate was paid to leave the OIOS position in
view of
"harassment."
4) Please provide some update or
statement regarding the status and findings of the review of the
PAE/Lockheed
Martin contract in Darfur which the General Assembly in December 2007
directed
OIOS to carry out.
If you wish, please describe any actions you have
taken on the Grimstad reports / your
documents.
This last,
the Grimstad report, was an audit of OIOS paid for with UN money, but
which Ms.
Ahlenius never released, claiming to Inner City Press that it is "her
document." On October 8, having
formally asked without response that Ahlenius as head of OIOS hold a
press
briefing as other Under Secretary General's do, Inner City Press again
wrote to
Ahlenius, reiterating the questions above and asking an additional
human
resources / promotions related question:
Ms. Ahlenius -- Now that you will
be reporting to the Fifth Committee, and will presumably
thereafter finally appear at a
press briefing in Room 226, please belatedly response to the four
questions
below which were sent to you more than five weeks ago.
While the first question
is partially answered
by Paragraph 40 of your Report, the others remain unanswered.
Additionally, in
connection with applications to become deputy director of OIOS'
investigations
division, please describe all of your and OIOS' knowledge of actions
taken by
Mr. Florin Postica and Mr. Vladislav Guerassev with regard to
co-applicant Andreas
Mlitzke and access to his UN personnel file. Finally, for now, please
state
when you will be appearing for a press briefing in Room 226.
While
Ahlenius did not respond to the reiterated questions either, in light
of the
letter below, which was sent to Ban Ki-moon, it would seem that she
will have
to at least answer questions, and soon. The letter:
Subj: Crisis in OIOS
From: [Withheld in this format]
To: Inga-Britt Ahlenius
CC: Catherine Pollard, Angela
Kane, Inner City Press
Date: 11/26/2008 4:36:28 P.M.
Eastern Standard Time
CONFIDENTIAL
26 November 2008
Dear Ms. Ahlenius,
It is with
regret that we have to write
this letter to you and that it is anonymous. However, the situation in
our
Office has deteriorated to the point where we fear to bring forward
many of the
issues that affect us. The absence of open communications between the
staff and
you and our fear of retaliation have forced us to appeal directly to
you. Other
channels are open but we believe it is best to take a direct approach
first and
resort to other approaches as they become necessary.
We are concerned with the issue of
senior post selection within OIOS which has caused a severe, repeat
severe,
succession planning crisis within OIOS at the most senior levels. For
the past
three years now, very little has been done to recruit, select and
assign staff
to senior management positions and “to limit temporary assignments to
vacant
posts to the shortest possible period, during which time the post must
be
filled under the procedures of (this) instruction (ST/AI/2006/3)”.
Specifically,
we are concerned that
several high level posts in OIOS inter alia the Director of the
Investigations
Division, the Director of the Inspections and Evaluation Division and
the OIOS
Executive Officer have been encumbered by temporary, acting officers
for
extremely lengthy periods of time and have not been advertised nor
filled in
accordance with standard practice. In addition, the Director of the
Internal
Audit Division is approaching retirement this month. Contractual
extensions of
staff who reach the mandatory retirement age as required by the General
Assembly should not be the subject of extension unless specific
criteria are
met. We are concerned that timely issuance of vacancy announcements,
especially
for staff members who are required to retire, are not being advertised
far
enough in advance and thus little succession planning occurs resulting
in
contrived reasoning and rationale for the extensions. Obviously this
has a
negative effect upon the career progression of serving staff. It is
thus
extremely likely that all three of the directorships within OIOS will
be
officially vacant as of 1 December 2008 and once again OIOS will revert
to
temporary filling of the IAD Director’s post either by improper
extension of
the current manager or by another temporary appointment!
The extension
of staff beyond the
mandatory age of retirement is an example of poor leadership, lack of
planning
and a fear of failure. It is both disappointing and discouraging that
you, as
our manager, pay so little attention to governance issues such as
succession
planning within your own Office. In the case of the IAD, an extension
of the
current Director would make a mockery out of the vacancy management
exercise
which was supposed to occur when the post was advertised last summer.
The
personal circumstances which have taken place in the last few months
have
destroyed the IAD Director’s reputation and made him appear a fool to
many of
us. For the past year his absence on unnecessary and costly official
business
to the far corners of the world has not been in the best interest of
OIOS or of
the United Nations. A recent example is his recent trip to Nairobi to
attend a
“retreat” by that small unit accompanied by the Deputy Director. In
this time
of world economic crisis, this exorbitant spending is absolutely in bad
judgment and a bad example for us as serving staff who know it is
wrong.
The IAD
director’s eventual succession by
the current Deputy Director, which is widely expected due to signals
received
by yourself in the last few months, is not acceptable to most serving
staff and
would seem to reward the overt favoritism and abuse of authority she
has
displayed with some subordinates. Of particular concern is the
favouritism
shown with respect to a particular subordinate with whom she resides.
This
particular situation, which has not been corrected by you, has gone on
during
your entire tenure and makes OIOS look ridiculous since it flaunts the
very
United Nations regulations and rules the Office tries to uphold. Please
expect
staff to register a “no confidence” vote in your leadership should the
Deputy
Director ever be appointed as Director. This choice would be absolutely
unacceptable to us.
In addition,
your choice of the Director
in the IAD Geneva Office is another embarrassment to your leadership
and
requires investigation. His recruitment and continued employment in
OIOS (he
turned 62 years old last April!) mocks us all as OIOS staff and sets a
double
standard we are all ashamed of. It is time for him to conclude his
brief United
Nations career before the scandal of his appointment and his age become
public
knowledge. The Report of the Advisory Committee on Administrative and
Budgetary
Questions of 6 November 2008 notes that staff members were often
extended
beyond mandatory retirement age pending recruitment of a replacement
and that
this situation can and should be avoided (A/63/526 refers). Does this
not apply
to OIOS? It is time that the accountability of your decisions receives
attention.
Another
example of your poor leadership is
the lack of your attention to management of the Investigations Division
which has
remained unresolved for several years now. While a temporary appointee
holds
the position of Director, it appears to many that he is only a
“placeholder”.
Many believe you may be thinking of appointing the chairman of the OIOS
Procurement Task Force [Robet Appleton] to this position late this
year. Should this occur, OIOS
staff will not be surprised if such a manipulation takes place because
this
pattern of ignoring United Nations established procedures has become a
hallmark
of your tenure as Under-Secretary-General. Unless a legitimate vacancy
management exercise is carried out, once again OIOS will be criticized
for
abiding by the double standards we often criticize our clients about.
Of great
concern is the use of temporary
replacements in OIOS. This has had a negative effect on staff morale
due to the
backlog of promotion prospects created when staff members are placed on
temporary posts with Special Post Allowance (SPA) for prolonged
periods. This
affects staff all the way down the line and freezes staff in temporary
posts
for long period s. Staff members serving on SPA may have been given the
false
impression that temporary assignments on SPA provide an advantage to
eventual promotion
to that particular post. However this is false and should not happen if
posts
are advertised and filled without unnecessary delay. Temporary
assignments on
SPA provide an unfair advantage to incumbents in eventual vacancy
management
exercises and seriously damage the full and fair right of other staff
members,
both within OIOS and in the Secretariat, to due process in promotion
exercises.
Temporary assignments longer than three months to higher level posts as
indicated in ST/AI/1999/17 should be viewed as detrimental to the
transparency
of the established vacancy management process within OIOS and in larger
sense,
the United Nations Secretariat. The General Assembly concurred some
years ago
and issued GA resolution A/Res/51/226. It is totally unacceptable that
OIOS
does not abide by the voice of the Member States and your tenure is
remarkable
in its lack of attention to this voice.
We
respectfully request that you, as the
USG of OIOS, address these issues immediately by conforming to standard
procedures
in OIOS staff selection processes. You should be at least aware of the
expressed desire of Member States and relevant resolutions and should
show
staff true professionalism and leadership in human resources management
and
succession planning in OIOS. As a start, improvement on communications
with
staff on progress taken to advertise and fill senior vacancies within
OIOS
should take place as soon as possible. We plead with you to address
these
concerns without delay since we intend to pursue them at the highest
levels and
apply pressure as required so that reform and change takes place.
Sincerely,
Staff members of OIOS
Copy to:
Mr. Ban Ki-moon,
Secretary-General of the
United Nations
We will
continue to follow this story. In fairness, perhaps despite
the series of non-answers, evasions and press non-availabilities, Ms.
Ahlenius has answers to these questions. If ever they are provided,
they will be reported on this site.
Click here for Inner City
Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
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here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali
National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
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