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UN Schools EU Companies to Get Yet More
Contracts, Outreach to Developing World Lacking
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
June 16 -- Despite a
disproportionate share of UN contracts already going to European and
American
companies, a two day training and access event is being held inside UN
headquarters, the European Union Procurement Forum Seminar 2008. While
the
General
Assembly has called for greater
diversity
in contracting, the outreach this week by UN Procurement
officials, from Paul Buades through Dmitry
Dovgopoli to the UN
Development Program's Krishan Batra, is to European companies from
Alcatel to
Total Outre-Mer.
A
sample panel discussion on Monday afternoon degenerated into
complaints from European companies about not getting enough contracts
and
money, all moderated by the French Mission Economique's Eric Duedal,
previously
shown to have gotten the UN's Paul Buades to change a Request for
Proposals at
the 11th hour to allow a previously ineligible company to bid, click here for that.
Several
key Ambassadors in the Group of 77, when asked Monday by Inner City
Press about
the European Union Procurement Forum event, expressed concern that it
was held
in UN headquarters. "They already get 90% of the contracts," one
complained. "Now they want to get more?" Well, yes.
Football in Africa, access to UN contracts and EU headstart not shown
A sample attendee is the putatively UK-based Land
Rover. In fact, it is owned by Detroit's own Ford Motors. It pulled out
of Sudan following a December 15, 2007 letter of inquiry from Cecilia
Blye, chief of the U.S. SEC's Office of Global Security Risk, that its
vehicles were being used for military purposes in the country.
One wonders if it
might not, however, bid for vehicle contracts with the UN Missions in
Sudan or
Darfur, and therefore keep making money as U.S.-based
Lockheed Martin has, despite the U.S. sanctions on
Sudan.
Footnotes on football:
Distributed to attendees was
a list of "soccer bars for watching UEFA Euro 2008 matches in NYC,"
none of them near the United Nations. In fact, a corner of the
Delegates'
Lounge has been devoted to the games. On Friday, as Iraq's Foreign
Minister Hoshyar
Zebari spoke, cheers went up about the Italy - Romania game. Minutes
later, Zebari
and body guards went to watch the game; no one watched them. In the
Security
Council itself, Italy's goalie who stopped Romania's penalty shot was
praised.
Whether Tuesday's Italy - France game will cut into the EU Procurement
Forum
program on ICT
contracting remains to be seen.
Also on the
football theme, a photo exhibition opened Monday evening near the
Vienna Cafe
in the UN's basement of players in African countries in the shadow of
Egypt's
pyramids and on the beaches of Togo. The photographer Pall Stefansson,
in a
loud plaid suit, leaned away from Iceland's Ambassador, but sidled up
to South
Africa's genial Dumisani Kumalo, who joked that the reception, complete
with
sushi and samosas, should continue throughout the exhibit's two weeks.
We'll
see.
* * *
These reports are
usually 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
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