Inner City Press





In Other Media-eg New Statesman, AJE, FP, Georgia, NYTAzerbaijan, CSM Click here to contact us     .



These reports are usually available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis
,



Share |   

Follow on TWITTER

More: InnerCityPro

Home -

These reports are usually available through Google News and on Lexis-Nexis

CONTRIBUTE

(FP Twitterati 100, 2013)

ICP on YouTube

BloggingHeads.tv
Sept 24, 2013

UN: Sri Lanka

VoA: NYCLU

FOIA Finds  

Google, Asked at UN About Censorship, Moved to Censor the Questioner, Sources Say, Blaming UN - Update - Editorial

Support this work by buying this book

Click on cover for secure site orders

also includes "Toxic Credit in the Global Inner City"
 

 

 


Community
Reinvestment

Bank Beat

Freedom of Information
 

How to Contact Us



At UN Pension Fund, Rajkumar Proposing Raising Retirement Age for Boykin's Botches

By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive Series

UNITED NATIONS, October 31 – With UN Pension Fund problems including late payments and $3.4 billion in foreign exchange costs leading to the departure of Secretary General Antonio Guterres' representative to the Fund Carolyn Boykin, who issued a gag order to staff not to leak to Inner City Press, problems remain. On October 19 Guterres replaced Boykin with Sudhir Rajkumar, and since then staff tell Inner City Press his proposals to make up for bad management are as follows: raise the early retirement age from 55 to 60, raise the general retirement age for the younger staff, and require the staff to put in 20 years instead of 15 before they can recoup what the UN committed to pay for their pension. We'll have more on this.

 On February 2, when Inner City Press asked UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric about Boykins gag order, he claimed UN staff misinterpreted it. From the UN transcript:

Inner City Press: You'd sent me an answer about the so-called hospitality log at the Pension Fund.  That was fine.  They published it.  Since then, the employees of that unit have all received a, what they call a gag order from Ms. Carolyn Boykin telling, reminding them that only the Secretary-General can speak for the Organization.  And they see it as basically they thought that they…

Spokesman:  I don't… I, you know, people can interpret whatever they want in whatever way they want.  My understanding is that what was circulated are the current, the current media guidelines, which actually say that people should be able to speak in their areas of, their area of competency.

Inner City Press:  So, what level of UN employee is… is authorized to disclose if they think they saw… they see corruption?  They took this as very much a threat to punishment.

Spokesman:  I'm sorry they interpreted it that way.

Inner City Press:  What does it mean?

Spokesman:  Mr. Abbadi.

   We'll stay on this.

  Inner City Press continued its series on January 26 with this from the UN Joint Staff Pension Fund, which whistleblowing staff tell Inner City Press maintains a "Hospitality Log" of its wining and dining of brokers, leaving General Service staff to (mis) fill in the information.

  The whistleblowers tell Inner City Press of a directive from Sandhya Peerthum, citing Ban Ki-moon's corrupt boondoggle UMOJA:

"With the implementation of UMOJA, assistance from EO has been drastically reduced. Assistants can help schedule interviews, print PHP, book rooms, take notes, enter guests in workspeed for access etc. They can better support the SIO’s by taking on more administrative roles to free up the SIO’s time so that they can focus on their respective portfolios. Also, trading has been absorbed by Vicky so there is a lot of excess capacity."

  The staff whistleblowers tell Inner City Press there is a problem with "accurate record keeping including the Hospitality Log – Hospitality log is the responsibility of the P-staff (Investment Officers) who wine and dine with brokers, advisers and other investment professionals. So how would a GS staff know when and where a P-staff would be enjoying lunch, dinner and beer (and what else) on any given date or time to update the hospitality log? This is totally illegal"

And needs investigation. The UN's holdover Spokesman Stephane Dujarric answered only two and a half of Inner City Press' 22 questions, and on January 25 and January 27 left the briefing room as Inner City Press was still asking questions. Then on January 27, this:

From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Date: Fri, Jan 27, 2017 at 12:35 PM
Subject: Your question on the Hospital Log of the UN Joint Staff Pension Fund
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com
Cc: Stephane Dujarric [at] un.org

We have the following information provided by the UNJSPF:
 
The purpose of the Hospitality Log is to record events which Investment staff attend as part of their official functions, which may include meetings, conferences, meals or receptions.  These events are to the benefit of the Fund, as they enable investment staff to network and gather information which is helpful to their research.  As most of the Fund is internally managed, attendance at such events is not unusual.
 
The Investment Management Division (IMD) has a Gift and Hospitality Policy, which was reviewed by the UN Ethics Office and the Pension Fund’s Audit Committee. This policy requires events to be logged and it requires them to be reasonable and customary in cost.  Additionally, the Investment Management Division conducts annual ethics training."

  After this spin, Carolyn Boykin, representative of the Secretary General (that would be, now, Antonio Guterres, "reminded" staff that they have no right to speak to the Press, that everything should be through... Dujarric, who stonewalled Inner City Press on Ban Ki-moon's and Cristina Gallach's corruption, threw it out of the Briefing Room and then the UN.


 There is a need for an entirely different approach, and new officials, at the UN. Watch this site.

 In Washington executive orders are being prepared to cut up to 40% of the US' contributions to the UN, and to fully cut funding to entities blamed for violation of human rights.

  One obvious question is whether the total denial of due process for whistleblowers - already part of US law - and investigative press which covers UN corruption constitutes such a violation. We'll have more on this.

***

Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com

UN Office: S-303, UN, NY 10017 USA

Reporter's mobile (and weekends): 718-716-3540

Google
 Search innercitypress.com  Search WWW (censored?)

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

 Copyright 2006-2015 Inner City Press, Inc. To request reprint or other permission, e-contact Editorial [at] innercitypress.com for