UN's Budget Advisor Criticizes Lack of Planning, from No-Bid Contracts to Travel Costs

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, January 6 -- Mistrust continues to grow between the UN's administration and its member states, the outgoing chairman of its budget advisory committee told Inner City Press on January 3. In an hour-long interview, Rajat Saha, who chaired the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions since September 2005, detailed a system in which UN departments underestimate by up to 200 percent how much they'll spend on travel, and ask for funding for employment posts that they then leave vacant for months and years. "They should lose those posts," Mr. Saha recommended, and "those responsible should be held accountable."

            Concerning the high-profile African Union-UN Hybrid Operation in Darfur, UNAMID, Mr. Saha reiterated the ACABQ's criticism of the UN's $250 million sole source contract with U.S. military contractor Lockheed Martin. "We felt this could have been dealt with better through advance planning," Saha said, specifying that the contract, for infrastructure in Sudan's Darfur region, could have been put out to bid rather than awarded without competition to Lockheed's subsidiary Pacific Architects & Engineers, PAE. 

            The ACABQ's report on UNAMID recounts that the "Committee was informed that, following negotiations on the original bid valued at $700 million, a contract was awarded to PAE/Lockheed in the value of $250 million." Saha explained that this claim had been made in the context of "too many Press reports. Members of the Advisory Committee were quite amused to read documents that perhaps you were instrumental" in unearthing, referring to Inner City Press' publication of, among others, letters of UN official Jane Holl Lute in April 2007 pushing Lockheed for a no-bid contract, and Headquarters Committee on Contracts minutes highly critical of the lack of competition. Ultimately, the General Assembly approved UNAMID's budget, with an expression of concern about the sole source Lockheed contract, and a call for an investigation by the UN's Office of Internal Oversight Services.

            Saha repeatedly distinguished the role of his committee from that of OIOS or the UN's Board of Auditors. He said that ACABQ does not demand documents from the Secretariat, and is not an auditor. He acknowledged that ACABQ does not look at the UN's system of trust funds. "We make recommendations," he said, that member states are free to accept or reject. He noted with obvious pride that under his tenure, 95 percent of ACABQ's recommendations were accepted. He also described how he brought about consensus in the Committee when required, by at a certain point issuing his own summary of the "preponderance of views." If no one formally objected to this description, the position was then that of the Committee as a whole. It's a matter of timing, he said, of knowing when to cut off debate and produce a recommendation.

            One UN debate that Saha suggests should be cut off is that on so-called "Systemwide Coherence," also called "One UN." On January 3 Saha told Inner City Press, "There will come a time when there can't be anymore conferences" on the topic, but a concrete recommendation will have to be made to the ACABQ. On January 4, Inner City Press asked UN spokesperson Michele Montas, "where does it stand in terms of actually making a proposal?  Is it anticipated that the Secretariat will come out with some kind of a plan with budget impact and all of that?" The Spokesperson answered yes, but in response to a follow-up question about the timing of making a proposal, said she didn't know.

            Among the deficits of knowledge of which Saha is most critical is the failure to reasonably predict spending on such budget items as travel, and the failure to fill posts for which authorization has been sought from the General Assembly. Both issues are detailed in one of Saha's lack reports, A/62/589 issued on December 17, which states that "a number of sections have exceeded the level of appropriation for travel of staff by more than twenty five per cent." A table shows, for example, that the while the UN's Office of Human Resources Management projected it would spend $509 million on travel over two years, it spent $1.191 billion, a cost overrun of 134 percent. The Office of the Under-Secretary-General for Management, which oversees budget presentations to the ACABQ, over-spent by a whopping 252 percent.

            Saha characterized as "bizarre" the UN's policy on staff mobility, also overseen by the Department of Management. He contrasted the UN's inaction on this, which leaves many staff "slogging it out in difficult posts," with the policies of various member states, including his own country, India. In the service of the Indian foreign ministry, Saha was sent to postings in South Korea, Libya, Switzerland and Bangkok. While saying that UN staff would benefit from seeing what takes place in the field, Saha predicted "you will run into problems with the union," and suggested that additional money be spend on staff morale. While Saha also spoke in favor of the so-called harmonization of UN contracts, Staff Union sources have told Inner City Press this is often a code-word for reducing staff to the lowest common denominator, and a way to circumvent hiring rules and standards by "normalizing" that status of people brought in as favors or nepotism through the UN Pension Fund and Departments of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) or Field Support (DFS).

Rajat Saha, center gesticulating to W.L. Swing, PAE/Lockheed contracts not shown

            Saha said he learned, in visits to DPKO missions from Haiti to the Democratic Republic of Congo, that the UN's claim to have "integrated missions" is not effective in these two countries. Of Sierra Leone and the Ethiopia-Eritrea mission, he said "more should be done." These are additional issues to be addressed by DFS's Jane Holl Lute, along with unanswered questions about her pushing for Lockheed Martin's no-bid contract, criticized now by Saha's ACABQ and the General Assembly.

            The background to Thursday hour-long interview was a previous misunderstanding, in which Inner City Press outside the Advisory Committee's basement off asked Saha as its chairman questions about the North Korea scandal of the UN Development Program, then quoted him in the resulting article. This is not the way it's done with ACABQ, apparently, although its administrative office does not provide information either. After some months of rueful smiles and a series of "no comments," Saha conclude "we both want the UN to work better," and agreed to the interview, in his personal capacity. Saha explained the secrecy in which ACABQ works as necessary to insulate its members from politics, from demands by their countries. "We are a technical body," he said. "If it's exposed," members will ask "why go against their country?" Saha's successor is Susan McLurg from the United States.

            Rajat Saha is now returning to India and re-joining its foreign service. He said he plans to return first to his birthplace, Calcutta, and catch up on reading, astronomy and even astrology. Then he will accept his next diplomatic posting. Since he's already  covered South Korea, Libya, Switzerland and Bangkok, then on the UN General Assembly's Fifth Committee before nine years on ACABQ, one hopes that his extensive knowledge of the UN and its budgetary process is fully used. We wish him well and hope to hear more from him.

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These reports are also available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis.

Click here for a Reuters AlertNet piece by this correspondent about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click 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

  Because a number of Inner City Press' UN sources go out of their way to express commitment to serving the poor, and while it should be unnecessary, Inner City Press is compelled to conclude this installment in a necessarily-ongoing series by saluting the stated goals of the UN agencies and many of their staff. Keep those cards, letters and emails coming, and phone calls too, we apologize for any phone tag, but please continue trying, and keep the information flowing.

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Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.

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