At UN, 34 Officials Have Not Filed Any Required Disclosure, Decisions Are Outsourced to Accounting Firm

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

UNITED NATIONS, February 1 -- While UN senior officials' public financial disclosures are described as voluntary though encouraged by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, filing financial disclosure not for public review is a requirement for senior UN officials. Nevertheless, fully 34 senior UN officials refused to file any form of financial disclosure, and their cases were referred by UN Ethics Office chief Robert Benson to the Office of Human Resources Management. Inner City Press on Friday asked Benson what has happened in these 34 cases, and if any of the non-compliant officials have since filed disclosure. It does not appear that there has been any movement since the referrals to OHRM, a UN Office that has been without anything more than an "acting" chief since the departure of previous director Jan Beagle for the UN's office in Geneva.

            After three days of requests to and for Benson, including written questions submitted on January 30, Benson consented Friday morning to a 45 minute interview with Inner City Press. It emerged that the UN Ethics Office does not have the officials' non-public financial disclosures, that these are only held by outside accountants PriceWaterhouseCoopers. The UN has also outsourced to PwC policy decision such as what constitutes a conflict of interest, and whether housing subsidy paid by a government to the spouse of a UN official violates the UN charter. While Benson has appeared at one UN press conference to explain his Office's work -- Inner City Press then and on Friday encouraged Benson to be more public, including about the UN's little-understood disclosure programs and purported whistleblower protection rules -- PwC has never spoken publicly about the policy decisions it is making for and about the UN. This outsourcing of policy decisions by an international organization raises fundamental questions of transparency and accountability that will need to be explored.

            The Ethics Office's role in the public disclosure program is essentially clerical. PwC forwards to Benson a list of Assistant Secretaries General and Under Secretaries General who have filed the required financial forms, and Benson says he writes to them. (Inner City Press asked Benson for the list of officials he had written to, but Benson said even this list of ASGs and USGs is protected by confidentiality.) Benson confirmed that those names not on the Secretary-General's public disclosure web site are people who have not responded, and are not participating in any public disclosure, even merely filing a form saying "I choose to maintain confidentiality." On January 31, a UN Development Program spokesperson told Inner City Press that ASG Kathleen Cravero of UNDP had filed her forms; Benson says if public financial disclosure forms had been filed, Ms. Cravero's name would be on the list, which it is not.

            A UNICEF spokesperson told Inner City Press that none of the three deputies whose names are not on the public webpage is required yet to file financial disclosure; Benson disagreed, noting that when an official is appointed, he is informed by OHRM, and he tells PwC to send the forms to the newly appointed official. The problem is, no timeline is provided for filling the forms out. As in many supposed reform measures at the UN, wide loopholes are left, and some officials drive trucks through them.

Ban Ki-moon and Kofi Annan, required financial disclosures by senior officials not shown

            Take for example the spousal loophole, whereby benefits that a government (or, by implication, a corporation or non-state actor) could not give to a UN official can simply be given to the official's spouse. Benson on Friday said if the spouse received these benefits "in their own right," it is permissible. But who decides if this is subterfuge and a working around UN rules? Not Mr. Benson. He said, "if you become aware of a such a situation, and the intent, let me know." Perhaps PwC, the unaccountable outside contractor, is looking into this. We'll never know.

            One task that is left to the UN Ethics Office is the protection of whistleblowers. While in two high-profile cases, Benson has been unwilling or unable to offer protection, Benson on Friday said that his Office has, more quietly, offered protection to two whistleblowers, and referred their cases to the Office of Internal Oversight Services. Benson would not say anything about these cases; nor has OIOS. Perhaps, as with the referrals of non-disclosing officials to OHRM, nothing will happen.  We will continue to follow these issues.

* * *

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.

Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com

Search WWW Search innercitypress.com

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

            Copyright 2006-08 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com -