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Russia's Lavrov Criticizes UNDP for "Privatized" Payments to Saakashvili for Soros

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

UNITED NATIONS, September 29 -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov criticized the UN Development Program on Monday for having funded, including with money from George Soros' Open Society Institute, the salary of Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili and his top aides. Inner City Press which first broke the story, in 2006 then August 2008 complete with UNDP confirmation, asked Lavrov if he felt in light of this funding that the UN in this case lost impartiality. "We must establish clear rules," Lavrov said, "for controlling spending by international organizations. We cannot allow such organizations to become privatized." Video here, from Minute 26:33.

    Later on Monday, Inner City Press asked Ban Ki-moon's Deputy Spokesperson Marie Okabe

Inner City Press: Lavrov, in a press conference, among other things, said of a program, in which the United Nations Development Program funneled salary to President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia on behalf of the Open Society Institute -- that it was a wrong United Nations program, and the UN should not be privatized in this fashion.  Either now or before the end of the day, is there some response by the UN to this critique by Russia’s Foreign Minister, of how the UN system is being privatized?

Deputy Spokesperson Okabe:  We’ll look into it for you.  If it's a UNDP program, we'll check with UNDP.

Question:  I have a follow-up question to that -- whether there was anything incorrect or hidden at UNDP at the time, renting premises allegedly from the head of the Open Society Institute...

Deputy Spokesperson:  Let’s ask UNDP if they have any follow-up on that.

[The Deputy Spokesperson later added that, in 2004, UNDP launched a “Governance Reform Programme” in Georgia.  This was done as a two-pronged approach to enable the Government to recruit the staff it needed and also to help remove incentives for corruption.  UNDP created a salary supplement fund, funded initially by $1 million from the Open Society Institute and $500,000 from UNDP, and later supplemented by another $1 million from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency.  This fund was designed to provide leading public servants with a wage that, though modest by international standards, was sufficient for Georgia.  At the same time, the Government was required to make a credible commitment to increase tax revenues in order to cover this rise in expenditure.  The Government was so successful in improving tax collection that the salary supplement programme for top officials was fully taken over by the State budget after just a single year (rather than the planned three).]

  But this response, later added to the UN's transcript, was the same old one UNDP provided a month ago, and did not address either Lavrov's critique, nor the question about conflict of interest, even after Inner City Press' story was widely picked up in the Russian media, click here for that.


Russia's Lavrov, UNDP explanation of Saakashvili funding not shown

   Inner City Press interviewed a range of diplomats later on Monday, including many who support Georgia over Russia but who without exception called the UNDP program a mistake and abuse of UN powers and mandate. Some said it would be one thing to help pay salaries of the police in an African country. But to be a funnel for private money to Georgia's president, in exchange for a fee? Inner City Press has repeatedly asked UNDP how much they collected in fees, without response.

News analysis: Now UNDP has been criticized by not only the United States, for its financial irregularities in North Korea and elsewhere, but also by Russia, for its politicized (and privatized) program in Georgia.  As previously noted, France and the UK are loath to criticize UN bodies, since being in the UN as Permanant Five members of the Security Council so magnifies their power. But UNDP is out of control; its failure to meaningful respond to Lavrov's critique is only the most recent example.

Watch this site, and this (UN) debate.

* * *

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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