UNITED
NATIONS, June
1 -- Two
departments of
the UN are
fighting over
which
gets 12 posts
or salaries
lines.
No one
in Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
office has
intervened and
made a
deicsion, and
so the two
departments
offer favors
to particular
member states
to get their
support in the
Budget
Committee.
Welcome
to
dysfunction in
Ban Ki-moon's
UN.
No
less than the
UN Journal
reported that
the Fifth
(Budget)
Committee
would finish
its work on
May 31. But
that morning,
when Inner
City
Press asked
the
Committee's
chairperson
Miguel Berger
of Germany if
that would
happen, he
candidly said,
"No."
At
5 pm on Friday
Inner City
Press checked
in with
several
members of
the Committee.
Some were
derisive of
the UAV plan
of UN
Peacekeeping
chief Herve
"The Drone"
Ladsous
for Cote
d'Ivoire.
But a
big fight
concerned a
proposed
power-grab by
UN Controller
Maria
Eugenia Casar
"and her
peacekeeping
budget
director."
The
Department of
Field Support
and the
Department of
Management, of
which the
Controller's
office is
part, were
tasked with
finding a new
way to draft
peacekeeping
budgets.
This,
multiple
sources exclusively
told
Inner City
Press, was
turned into a
"power
grab" by
Casar, who
"made DFS give
up twelve
posts,"
and
transferred
them to her
office.
DFS
understandably
pushed back;
in typically
dysfunctional
UN fashion the
two
Departments
are now using
different
member states
- in exchange
for favor, of
course - to
press forward
their position
in the Fifth
Committee. Is
this any way
to run an
Organization?
Meanwhile,
apparently
to try to
avoid detailed
press
coverage, one
thing the UN
says it will
stand firm on
is eliminating
media
workspace that
has
existed for
years in front
of the
Security
Council.
Both before
and
during the $2
billion
renovation
(after which
there is STILL
bad
wiring), there
was a media
table in front
of the
Security
Council.
But
now, despite being
shown as
recently as
May 31 by
the Free
UN
Coalition for
Access exactly
where one
could go, the
UN is saying
no.
Or is letting
the move of
the Security
Council,
today, happen
without
maintaining
previous media
access.
Now
DPI claims it
is doing this
for member
states it
leaves
unnamed. In
light of the
above,
believable
without more?
This is Ban's
UN.
, 
