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In Corrupt UN of Guterres Gebeyehu Negewo Gets Nairobi Post Despite Role in Rights Violations

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive CJR PFT

UNITED NATIONS GATE, March 8 – The corruption in the UN system under UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres ranges from impunity for sexual abuse and harassment to double-dipping of benefits, to massive over-spending on travel by Guterres himself, by Erik Solheim whose resigntion for it Guterres has accepted and others at UNEP and, as Inner City Press is detailing in an ongoing series of articles based on leaked documents, in the UN Development Program and its Office of South South Cooperation. We focused on 19 September 2018 on the Deputy Administrator of UNDP,  Tegegnework Gettu, whose travel waste we previously reported on and his threat to staff that they better be careful, see below. Now on 8 March 2019, with Inner City Press banned by Guterres for the 247th day from attending the noon briefing and asking questions, it was used to announce: "And lastly but not last.  Today, we are announcing the appointment of Workneh Gebeyehu Negewo of Ethiopia as Director-General of the UN Office at Nairobi, otherwise known as UNON.  Mr. Gebeyehu succeeds Hanna Tetteh of Ghana who was appointed as Special Representative to the African Union and Head of the UN Office to the African Union.  Currently Minister for Foreign Affairs of Ethiopia since 2016." So wait - given that time period, and before, how many human rights violations did he defend and participate in? Many. But Guterres doesn't care - he took the golden statue for notorious killer Paul Biya of Cameroon. Guterres is killing the UN in New York - and now in Nairobi. We'll have more on this. Inner City Press was thrown out of the UN without due process - reiterated in a Kafka-esque denial on 2 January 2019 - and Guterres spokesman has refused to answer Inner City Press' questions about travel waste, of his boss Guterres and about UNDP in particular. And now Gettu is gone - he left UNDP on 31 December 2018, with nary a farewell message to staff, many of whom had complained repeatedly to Inner City Press about him. One exclusively shared with Inner City Press, "The Administrator [Achim Steiner] had invited all UNDP HQ Staff to Gettu’s Farewell party with a reminder but only a few people attended the party at on 7 December 2018.  Except for one Ethiopian lady who works in the Executive Office, all his compatriot didn’t attend his party.  On 31 December 2018, the Administrator sent the Gettu’s Farewell message and everyone was expecting his final good-bye message but he didn’t send anything and left the organization quietly.  Late in the afternoon, the UNDP Bulletin communicated Gettu’s personal email to all staff.  It is a shame he didn’t even have the courage to say good-bye... The next question is to the Administrator, how is he going to clean Gettu’s messes: corruption, injustice, nepotism recruitment and retaliation on those who stand for their right.   
From: UNDP Bulletin 
Sent: Monday, December 31, 2018 5:26 PM
 Subject: Mr. Tegegnework Gettu
Dear Colleagues,     I am sharing with you Mr. Gettu’s email address, in case you would like to contact him... All the best for 2019.  From: Achim Steiner 

Sent: Monday, December 31, 2018 9:55 AM Subject: FW: Farewell to our Associate Administrator - Tegegnework Gettu       
Dear UNDP Colleagues,   Today is not only the last day of the year 2018.  It is also the day when our Associate Administrator and my dear colleague and friend ‘Teg’, will ‘turn off the lights in his office’ one last time, before stepping into the elevator on the 21st floor of our DC1 Building and bring to closure the last chapter of his decades long journey with UNDP and the United Nations.   I would like to take this opportunity to express my appreciation - and I believe I do so also on behalf of my predecessors - to Mr. Gettu for a ‘life of exceptional service’ to development, UNDP and the United Nations.   Many of you will have - over the years - worked with him, met him, learned from him, agreed or disagreed with him. Like me, I expect you will have realised quickly that Mr. Gettu brought to his many assignments not only professional rigour but also exceptional commitment to the organisation and countries he served.   Many colleagues in UNDP learned from him - be it in terms of his passion for what we do, the lack of tolerance he had for ‘shoddy work’, his willingness to serve the organisation wherever it needed him most - including a few years in the UN Secretariat as USG for DGCAM - and the highest standards he applied to himself (... anyone whoever gave him an interesting book would know that within a few days he would be ready to discuss a heavily annotated and underlined version of it)!   As we say ‘goodbye’ to Mr. Gettu - our Associate Administrator - I want to add my personal thank you for the 18 months we worked together as a team in the Executive Office. From the day I was appointed by the Secretary-General to lead UNDP through its next chapter, I was fortunate to have Teg’s wisdom, knowledge and experience to draw on, as I learnt to ‘understand UNDP and its crew’. Sometimes leadership is as much about “listening and learning” as it is about “leading and deciding”. I could not have asked for a better ‘companion’ and remain grateful for this time that we - together - led UNDP through a period of intense transformation and change.   As he leaves us to return to Ethiopia I would like to - on behalf of all of us in UNDP and the UN family - wish him, his wife and family, all the best for the new year and for what lies ahead as they return home.   With my best wishes,   Achim Steiner."

  Gettu's help to scam elections by Ethiopia's prior prime minister have been reported - in exchange, sources day, for support to make Gettu a high UN official. This is Guterres' UN. Travel expenses by UNDP in 2017 amounted to nearly $27 million, and by August 2018
came in at a staggering $26 million four months short of year end. Gettu's tab is
$159,640.41. Look in his leaked list at his inflated airfare to Switzerland, leaked travel budget document downloadable on Patreon here, with Air Ticket the first column and "Allowance" the second :
TEGEGNEWORK GEITU, Associate Administrator $ 159,640.41
Nigeria $ 11,197.00 $ 280.00
Norway $ 5,116.00 $ 784.00
Afghanistan $ 16,260.00 $ 162.00
Switzerland $ 22,136.21 $ 368.00
Japan $ 5,405.00 $ 574.00
China $ 3,459.00 $ 460.00
Afghanistan $ 20,489.00 $ 162.00
China, Qatar $ 16,697.00 $ 2,178.00
Kenya $ 4,473.00 $ 1,050.00
Malaysia $ 11,084.00 $ 216.00
China - Ethiopia $ 16,645.02 $ 1,545.57
Djibouti $ 6,916.00 $ 466.35
Eritrea $ 1,273.26 $ 430.00
China $ 9,398.00 $ 416.00

We'll have more on this. On September 18, as elsewhere in the UN system corrupted by Guterres the head of UN Environment Erik Solheim blames his travel waste on his own administrative (Inner City Press exclusively pubished Solheim's internal email here), we focus on the head of UNDP, Achim Steiner. Since being given the top job at UNDP by Guterres in exchange for allowing Guterres' power grab of the UN Resident Coordinator system from UNDP, one of the dubious reform for support of which by UN Budget Committee char Tommo Monthe of Cameroon Guterres helped cover up Cameroon's slaughter of Anglophones, Steiner's international travel has cost nearly $10,000 or more for airfare per trip, with one trip to Myanmar
- Japan - United Kingdom costing around $28,000 for airfare only. Leaked travel budget document downloadable on Patreon here,
with Air Ticket the first column and "Allowance" the second :
UNDP MANAGEMENT Air Ticket Allowance
ACHIM STEINER, Administrator $ 353,732.24
Switzerland $ 1,024.00 $ -
New York $ 9,345.00 $ -
New York $ 8,612.00 $ 151.68
Italy $ 10,205.00 $ 320.00
Myanmar - Japan - United Kingdom $ 28,453.45 $ 1,239.04
Sweden - Norway $ 7,409.00 $ 736.00
Germany $ 10,039.00 $ 324.00
United Kingdom $ 6,576.00 $ 439.75
San Francisco $ 3,758.00 $ 411.24
Washington DC $ 408.00 $ 1,029.68
Washington DC $ 612.00 $ 893.06
Sweden $ 9,887.00 $ 214.00
Egypt $ 7,345.00 $ 207.00
Germany - Qatar $ 11,991.00 $ 2,592.06
Switzerland - India - China - France $ 31,443.70 $ 1,969.64
Switzerland - Ethiopia - Somalia $ 19,652.30 $ 6,976.69
UAE - Kuwait - Lebanon - Germany - Belgium $ 19,985.00 $ 3,143.32
Washington DC $ 1,380.00 $ 545.57
Zimbabwe - Argentina $ 16,523.00 $ 1,284.38
Boston $ 523.62 $ 385.00
Turkey - France $ 11,515.30 $ 708.59
United Kingdom $ 6,877.00 $ -
Sweden $ 5,779.00 $ 838.00
Washington DC $ 915.00 $ 1,099.70
Belgium - United Kingdom $ 7,974.00 $ 4,521.88
Norway - Russia $ 9,617.00 $ 938.03
Switzerland - France - Germany $ 13,829.00 $ 2,382.77
France $ 13,350.00 $ 841.35
Vietnam $ 6,830.00 $ 402.67
Argentina - United Kingdom $ 17,915.00 $ 764.77
Angola - Namibia $ 8,616.00 $ -
Germany $ 6,098.00 $ 322.00
Panama $ 3,037.00 $ 526.00." All for a total of
$ 353,732.24.... Note that Guterres' son has business links, undisclosed and unanswered on, in Angola and Namibia. We'll have more on this. We started September 17 with UNOSSC because after exposing how it was used by convicted UN briber Ng Lap Seng, a corrupt censorship order by Guterres and his Global Communicator Alison Smale resulted last week in Inner City Press remaining banned from a press conference by OSSC director Jorge Chediek, who was then invited by the resident correspondents present to say that te Office's corruption has been "fabricated." Video here. This is the UN of Guterres, who has taken 15 publicly funded junkets to Lisbon on which his spokesman Stephane Dujarric has refused to answer or disclose the costs. And this is Chediek's spending on travel, exclusive leaked document here. Chediak has undertaken 27 trips, costing nearly $145,000. The issue of Mr. Chediek' s travel has been raised previously by Inner City Press. In a 10 April 2017 article, Inner City Press wrote that the director "devotes his time to useless travel promoting books already 'launched' in New York and to pitching the conference that would give him his ASG post." In the lead up to BAPA+40, a majorinternational conference to be paid for and hosted by the bankrupt Argentine government, he seems to be doing just that, including bragging about this meeting with Guterres' Global Censor Alison Smale who has not provided any due process, nor made the UN's minimal public financial disclosure. In a recent example of the excessive travels undertaken by the staff of this questionable Office, a conference in China saw a total of four staff from New York, all Chinese nationals, accompany Mr. Chediek. Despite this undeniable waste, and in the context of
considerable strain on UNDP' s core funding, the Office for South-South Cooperation has
managed to escape all budgetary cuts. The Office continues to receive $3.5 million and a
similar amount for staff salaries annually as core funding from UNDP for the 2018 -
2021 period. More on Chediek's travel, in a series to be carried out down the line at UNDP, with Air Ticket the first column and "Allowance" the second :
JORGE CHEDIEK, UN Office for South-South Cooperation $ 144,298.82
Benin $ 5,390.00  $ 509.04
Switzerland $ 2,450.00 $ 1,272.00
Thailand $ 3,140.00 $ 975.53
Turkey - Kazakhstan $ 4,500.00 $ 1,091.24
Kenya $ 4,740.00 $ 1,210.72
China $ 5,270.00 $ 673.40
Brazil $ 5,950.00 $ 505.76
Argentina $ 3,520.00 $ 1,230.00
China - India $ 9,045.10 $ 1,420.90
Argentina $ 4,053.00 $ 1,168.32
France $ 2,424.50 $ 1,313.68
Germany $ 2,315.00 $ 1,030.00
Brazil $ 2,672.10 $ 815.50
Turkey $ 2,722.00 $ 363.00
Bangladesh - Hong Kong $ 7,800.00 $ 1,771.48
Hawaii $ 2,848.00 $ 337.80
Egypt - France $ 3,976.90 $ 2,283.00
Brazil $ 2,747.60 $ 822.17
Argentina $ 5,053.70 $ 909.52
Portugal - Spain $ 3,832.01 $ 1,698.16
Cuba $ 342.70 $ 848.94
South Africa $ 7,424.50 $ 710.39
China $ 5,429.00 $ 1,307.21
France - Norway $ 1,912.71 $ 1,603.60
Thailand $ 6,326.00 $ 1,262.83
Egypt $ 5,650.00 $ 983.92
India $ 3,882.21 $ 763.68
  Yes, a total of over $144,000. But there's worse at UNDP - watch this site.


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