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By Matthew Russell Lee & sources, Exclusive

UN GATE, Jan 27 – The 210th session of the Executive board of UNESCO ended today. Typical of the corruption of the UN system under Antonio Guterres, now lusting after an UNmerited second term, not a single question was raised by member states about the fraudulent management of the UN agency.

No question about the evaporated 430.000 US dollars, mentioned in the UK ambassador’s letter (here), nor about the 600.000 Euros Italian individual donation sunk in a BFM clandestine account for special use by Madam DG Azoulay.

No question as well about the mistress of Kacyanides, with the initials LNH, promoted by DG Azoulay to P5 level in total violation of staff regulations. 

   Board members demonstrated a total abdication of their paramount responsibility, as funders of the organization, to hold accountable the French DG Azoulay for her abuse of power in misusing public money. They bargained during hours about dashes and commas in the draft decisions, spent days absurdly delineating the way ahead for UNESCO to “save the world”, with its annual budget representing six times less than the money spent for ice-cream yearly, in Italy alone. Board members confronted each other on inconsequential issues, but politely reached a consensus to preserve Madam Azoulay from inquiries about the pickpocketing by her administration of tax-payers money.  

  What's more, in light of their institutional responsibility of custodians of accountability and constitutionality at UNESCO, the Chair of the Executive board, the Ambassador of Equatorial Guinea Agapito Mba Mokuy, and the President of the General conference, the Turkish Ambassador, Altay Cengizer, were both expected to request clarifications about the revealed by Inner City Press daylight robbery of public funds.     On the contrary, “we heard at this Board so many ‘thank you’ to Audrey Azoulay from the usual member states, that some of us start wondering whether the overwhelming corruption at UNESCO, channeled through the Cabinet of Azoulay, has not reached out to those member states as well”, said one high official who agreed to talk to Inner City Press under the cover of anonymity. “It would not be surprising if those Ambassadors are complementing their emoluments by pleasing the Director general, who in return is gratifying them”.   

 Those who challenged the UNESCO administration with facts about the unpleasant reality were the two staff unions. Last Friday, 22 January, the STU issued a strong statement on its areas of concern, underscoring the problems with the mobility exercise that it is not carried out according to the recommendation by IOS; the lack of career development and professional prospects; the abrogation of the internal justice system with the abolition of the Reports Board, “which places the Administration in the position of judge and party and deprives staff of impartial appeals opportunities”. Furthermore, the STU restated its commitment to the principle of “zero tolerance towards behaviors that disrespect values and rules”.     Yesterday, the President of the international staff association (ISAU) also addressed member states: “UNESCO's strategic transformation is an ongoing concern of ISAU” (…)

“I should therefore like to express my concern at the Administration's propensity to ignore the opinions of its staff and insidiously erode their fundamental rights through the recent revisions of the Human Resources Manual.  (…) the recent measures taken by the Administration not only constitute a denial of the staff and its value, but also a contempt for the staff associations and their representatives, elected to bring their voices and grievances to Management. …ISAU hopes that its written comments and oral statements will resonate in order to prevent a culture of deafness and mistrust from developing within the Secretariat. Such a situation would be unreasonable and irrational, as it could undermine both the integrity and the effectiveness of our Organization”.     Those strong warnings are a timely wake-up call for both staff and member states. No other DG in the history of UNESCO has abolished so many staff rights.

 In three years since her election in November 2017, DG Azoulay repealed the following rules and mechanisms for internal justice and protection of staff members:  - Cancellation of Staff Rule 102.2 of the Human Resource Manual allowing staff members to make individual reclassification requests. This cancellation has been decided against the viewpoint of STU, ISAU and Member States;  - Abolition of the Special Advisory Committee; - Abolition of the Review Panel;  - Abolition of the Reports Board, despite the STU and ISAU strong protests  -

Abolition of the Joint Disciplinary Committee allowing the administration to fire recalcitrant staff with no possibility for examination and internal justice protection against abusive dismissals and separations from the organization. - Recalculation of the sick leave granted to staff members and reduction in the reimbursement scheme of the UNESCO medical fund in total violation of Statutes and staff regulations.  Thus, almost all internal justice mechanisms, providing for the staff to contest and defend their rights, have been abolished by the French Azoulay. “In 2021, UNESCO embarked on the journey to a North Korean style dictatorship. And the EU Ambassadors are fervently supporting it, in their best traditions of democratic hypocrisy. Staff members must act together so as to avoid their individual elimination by the administration, one by one”, added our source. 

Besides the imperative questions raised by the staff unions, the following ones are still pending:  

  1)   In his letter, the UK ambassador pointed out that the embezzlement allegations of financial impropriety and breach of rules were factual information and proved to be “a confirmed financial fraud”. So, who will be fired and who will reimburse the 430.000 US dollars public money? 

2) The personal contributions to UNESCO made by individuals. The Cabinet of Azoulay instructed BFM  to make sure that Madam Azoulay would be able use those funds secretly. The donation of some 600.000 Euros to UNESCO, made by an Italian citizen disappeared in a undisclosed account. So, when will the Italian ambassador, Massimo Riccardo, ask for explanations?

3)  Pending as well the investigation of the internal arrangements by the Cabinet of DG Azoulay granting impunity to those accountable for the unjustifiable and speculative spending of some 2 million dollars by UNESCO. In two separate contracts, one for 1.536.000 EURO, and another one for 180.000 EURO, UNESCO contracted a French company (with the benediction of the French DG) to do the core redesign of the organization’s financial and administrative systems and tools. Subsequently, those amounts had been paid to the French enterprise without getting the expected deliverables and the UNESCO staff was instructed to do the job instead. In spite of those incriminating facts, both the chief officer of the core redesign project Sameer Pise and the initial coordinator of this scheme, Sachin Bhatt, remain fully protected by DG Azoulay and both got promoted by her.

 4) The staff members cases lost in Geneva where UNESCO got sentenced by the ILOAT to pay hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ money. IOS must investigate the work of the senior staff members in HRM dealing with contested cases, namely A. Grisar and A. Duganis. A sanction that would certainly put an end to this persisting detrimental situation in dealing with personnel files, is an automatic wage withholding of HRM managers so as to reimburse the financial loss for the Organization provoked by their incompetence in dealing with contested files.   

This is where UNESCO stands today, a UN agency ravaged by greed and financial misappropriations, propitious to the flourishing of abuse of power, corruption and nepotism. Watch this site.

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