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As
Lights Go Out at UN, Electricians Linked to
Crime Are Paid $3.4 M a Year to 2010
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee
of Inner City Press at
the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS, April 14 -- The lights went out
Tuesday in the top floors of
the UN. Staff members were told they could leave. No explanation was
given on
Tuesday, nor regarding another power outage, on lower floors, Saturday
during
an emergency Security Council meeting about the North Korea launch. The
UN's
electrical contractor, Petrocelli, has this month seen its founder
Santo
Petrocelli indicted for bribery, described by law enforcement as
associating
since 1988 with members of the Genovese crime family.
Tuesday's
incident, an involved UN worker told Inner City Press, was caused by
"someone kicking" off a transformer on the UN's 28th floor. Another
added that this happened before, that the UN's electrical contractor
had failed in its maintenance and then charged overtime to fix what it
had not maintained.
On April 13, Inner
City
Press asked:
Inner
City Press: last
week I’d asked about this contract with Petrocelli Electric that the UN
has, in
light of the indictment of the founder of the company.
Over the weekend The New York Times reported
that the FBI says that the founder is connected or has associations
with the
Genovese crime family. So what I’m
wondering is now given... if you accept that report is true in The New
York
Times, what is the UN going to do about these contracts?
Associate Spokesperson Haq: Well,
Michèle
told you what we’re doing in terms of that, and what she said last week
hasn’t
changed.
Inner City Press: So the current contract
is
going to continue? How long does the
current contract run?
Associate Spokesperson: Right now,
they’re suspended from the list of vendors, but we do have, of course,
our
current facility needs. So we have an
existing contract. But I believe she
mentioned to you the suspension last week and...
Inner City Press: For future
business. I just want to know how much the
current
business is and whether this new report makes any changes.
Inner
City Press: I think she
mentioned to you what the details of that contract were.
But I can just re-submit that over to you if
you don’t have those details.
Inner City Press:
I don’t think she said either
length or dollar value or any of the details.
Associate Spokesperson: No, I think she
mentioned what the services are. So,
I’ll get that over to you.
Working on wires at UN, blackouts and organized crime not shown
Following
the exchange above, the Associate Spokesman sent over the same
non-quantitative
presentation supplied the previous week. After the request was
reiterated, the
following morning this came in:
Subj: Your question on Petrocelli
From: unspokesperson-donotreply [at] un.org
To: Inner City Press
Sent: 4/14/2009 8:57:49 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time
In response to your question about the duration and cost of the
contract with
the Petrocelli Electric Company, we can inform you that the contract
has a
duration of five years, from 1 July 2005 until 30 June 2010. Annual
charges are
approximately $3.4 million. The contractor provides a total of 21
persons.
From
this it is not clear how the $3.4 million a year is calculated, nor if
the contractor ever provides refunds for work badly done, or UN labor
hours lost. We will continue to follow this story -- even in the dark.
Footnote: In fairness,
during the the first of these two blackouts, on Saturday April 11, at
least one television broadcasters remarked to Inner City Press that
"even if they are Mafia connected," the individual Petrocelli
electricians who ran emergeny cables were pleasant and seemed
confident. And so we report that.
Click here
for a new YouTube video, mostly UN Headquarters footage, about civilian
deaths
in Sri Lanka.
Click here for Inner City
Press' March 27 UN debate
Click here for Inner City
Press March 12 UN (and AIG
bailout) debate
Click here for Inner City
Press' Feb 26 UN debate
Click
here
for Feb.
12 debate on Sri Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56
Click here for Inner City Press' Jan.
16, 2009 debate about Gaza
Click here for Inner City Press'
review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate
Click here for Inner
City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press'
December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
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
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
UN
Office: S-453A, UN, NY 10017
USA
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Reporter's
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weekends):
718-716-3540
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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2006-08 Inner City Press, Inc. To request
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