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By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive CJR  Q&A

UN GATE, Oct 26 – The corruption in the UN system under UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres ranges from impunity for sexual abuse and harassment to lack of financial disclosures and audits to outright double-dipping of benefits, whistleblower UN staff have repeatedly complained to Inner City Press. Two months later, one of the double dipper was rewarded with a promotion to UN Resident Coordinator in the United Arab Emirates, see Achim Steiner's announcement below. Steiner has done and said nothing about Guterres' roughing up and banning of Press - he too is a retaliatory.

 In October 2019 Inner City Press exclusively publishes this: " In his speech to the Executive Board some two months ago, UNDP Administrator, Mr Steiner says he takes corruption matters very seriously. See here, from 29 minutes 40 seconds.    However, when Russian whistleblower Dmitry Ershov, who has been seeking justice for almost 5 years, reached out to him in September, he simply ignored him. See below.  Nobody has been found guilty and nobody is accountable in UNDP for the failure to do oversight properly for so many years. Meanwhile, concerned donors continue to press Steiner on the continued cover up of the stealing that went on the UNDP Russia office over many years.  UNDP continue to cover up. Achim Steiner acts like an ostrich, hoping the problems will go away.
From: dmitry.ershov at RU
To: achim.steiner@undp.org, michele.candotti@undp.org
 Re: Corruption and cover up practices in UNDP Moscow Office (message no. 2)  
Dear Mr Steiner,   I listened to your speech on Youtube with interest at the UNDP Executive Board last week.   You said that this is just 1 project out of 4500 that UNDP manages but actually there were 4 GEF climate change projects in Russia that had conflict of interest and corruption allegations reported years ago and as far as I am aware UNDP did nothing about any of them. But this is not about just one project. It is about an OAI system that is not working and about UNDP in which whistleblowers lose their jobs, where the OAI does nothing for years and years, and where people stealing and covering up stealing keep their jobs or even get promoted.   On my project (Project ID 00070781), clearly your Office of Audit and Investigation has botched their investigation. They said they detected conflicts of interest and irregularities in May 2018. But I and other persons who were also harassed also were reporting these conflicts of interest to UNDP many time way back in 2014 and UNDP did nothing and took no actions for years even when Russian government was investigating and I informed them about it. What took so long? No OAI investigator ever contacted me when they came to Moscow. I could have helped them a lot if they actually were serious and wanted to find something. I could have connected them to the Russian government investigators who were investigating our national project director, Mr Antropov. To me it seems your OAI were not interested to find wrongdoing and UNDP does not want to know the truth about this project because too many people are guilty of not doing their jobs properly.   I heard you say to the Executive Board meeting that 'UNDP takes this matter very seriously'. But I do not agree with you.   Because nobody has been held accountable for this in UNDP. Nobody is guilty and I am ignored. Nobody wants to engage with me.   If what you say is true and these matters are being taken seriously, UNDP should hold an independent investigation into what went so wrong over so many years. It is not correct that people who have been stealing and/or covering up stealing keep their jobs while myself, an honest UNDP project manager who complained and reported the conflicts of interest and the repeated interference in tenders lost his job and livelihood and went through a huge amount of emotional stress including a period where I had no job at all. I was the sacrificial lamb in a pack of wolves.   October 2014 when I lost my UNDP job is really a long time ago. As you know, I have tried for many years to seek justice. The GEF Secretariat did not help me when I wrote them. The OAI did not help me when I wrote them so many times. The UNDP Ethics Office did not protect me either. Other persons who reported corruption in allegations in Russia also faced harassment, threats, and delayed payments and other problems. It was not only me. I am just the only one who was brave enough to speak out.   I hope that one day you will ask somebody from your organization to reach out to me to talk to discuss what can be done.   How can you talk about making sure these things do not happen again if I am simply ignored in the hope that I will one day just go away?   If you do ask somebody to reach out to me in your organization and talk to me about what can be done this will show me that UNDP under your leadership is indeed taking these matters very seriously and I will be grateful.   Sincerely yours,   Dmitry Ershov 12 September 2019." 

And here they are, UNanswered by Guterres' spokesman Dujarric who instead blocks Inner City Press after having roughed up, so with names unredacted as no responses at all to questions asked in three days ago to Guterres' Team, including on WOGC, connected to imprisoned UN briber Ng Lap Seng's Carlos Garcia, dealing in Kiribati with the UN, separate exclusive here, now this: "Dear Matthew, While UNDP and all UN agencies are suffering from the budget problem, some dishonest UNDP staff are taking two entitlements using their two passports interchangeably against the UNDP benefits entitlement rules.  As a US Citizen, they get US Tax reimbursement; they also get Home Leave and Education grant entitlements using their national/original passport.  It is sad to see UNDP’s senior staff participated in this fraud, as you can see from below Atlas record these staffs grade is from P4 – D2.  Predominantly, Ana Patricia ALVAREZ, and  Shazma Nathwani, the  HR Advisors also participated in this scam.   Some of the staff got more than $100,000 with this ongoing problem, e.g. Shazma Nathwani, $168,000. HR Staff have identified this issue early this year and reported to the HR Director and BMS Director but no action taken.  All UNDP staff in HQ knows this problem but had no other choice fear of retaliation, because of these people close relationship with UNDP senior management including their network.  We need your help...

ATLAS Record - List of Staffs with inappropriate  multiple benefits
No     Name     Title     Current Location     Level     Country-Place of Home Leave      Nationality Types     Douale payments made
1      ALVAREZ, Ana Patricia     HR Business Partner Central Bureaus, HQ/BMS/OHR     UNDP - New York     P-5     Honduras     Honduras- official     Home Leave and Education Grant
                                    USA - Tax      
2      ASSAF, Dena     Deputy Director, HQ/UNDOCO     UNDP - New York     D-2     Palestine     Palestine - official     Home Leave
                                    USA - Tax      
3      BRANT Heather     Chief of Section, HQ/Evaluation Office     UNDP - New York     P-5     Switzerland     Switzerland - official     Home Leave and Education Grant
                                    USA - Tax      
4      ALAIN Noudehou     Chief of Staff & Director, Executive Office, CO/SS     South Sudan     D-2     Benin     Benin - official     Education Grant
                                    USA - Tax      
5      ORUC  Yesim     Deputy  Director, HQ/BERA/LO/Washington     Washington     P-5     Tureky     Turkey - official     Education Grant
                                    USA - Tax      
6      REIMOV, Ajmiyaz     Programme Analyst (Research), HQ/BPPS     UNDP - New York     P-2     Uzbekistan     Uzbekistan - official     Education Grant
                                    USA - Tax      
7      RUSSELL, Andrew     UN Development Coordinator, HQ/BMS/OHR     UNDP - New York     D-1     Canada     Canada - official     Education Grant
                                    USA - Tax      
8      SERENYI Peter     Policy Specialist, HQ/UNDOCO     UNDP - New York     P-4     Hungary     Hungary - official     Education Grant
                                    USA - Tax      
9     SHAMASH-LADD Hamutal Esther     Legal Specialist     UNDP - New York     P-4     Israel     Israel - official     Home Leave
                                    USA - Tax      
10      UNGUREANU Carla     Human Resources Analyst, HQ/BMS/OHR     UNDP - New York     P-2     Peru     Peru - official     Home Leave
                                    USA - Tax      
11      JUHKAM Robert     Team Leader, HQ/BERA     UNDP - New York     P-5     Estonia     Estonia - official     Home Leave and Education Grant
                                    USA - Tax      
12      KINSLEY Sharon     Deputy Chief of Staff & Deputy Director     UNDP - New York     D-1     UK     UK - official     Home Leave and Education Grant
                                    USA - Tax      
13      LINOU Natalia     Policy Specialist, HQ/BPPS     UNDP - New York     P-4     Greece     Greece - official     Home Leave and Education Grant
                                    USA - Tax      
14      NATHWANI Shazma     Human Resources Specialist, HQ/BMS/OHR     UNDP - New York     P-4     Australia     Australia - Official     Home Leave
                                    USA - Tax     A
Regards,

UNDP Staffers

We'll have more on this.

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