UN
Audit Slams
UMOJA As
Corporate
Friends Hired,
Pension
Fund PWC Too
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
August 23 --
The UN's
much-delayed
Enterprise
Resource
Planning
systems
upgrade
"UMOJA" has
been plagued
by
nepotism and
the hiring of
friends from
its inception.
In 2010 Inner
City Press exclusively
exposed how
Paul van
Essche came in
as head of
the ERP at the
D-2 level and
immediately
moved to bring
in colleagues
and friends
from Geneva
like Jon Solem,
doctoring
their Personal
History
Profiles to do
so. Click
here for that.
Now,
ostensibly to
solve the
problem,
Ernesto Baca
has been
brought in,
previously of
the World Food
Program and
before that
Telecom
Argentina.
Strikingly,
this is the
same
trajectory as
Ban Ki-moon's
current chief
of staff
Susana
Malcorra.
Perhaps those
she is
bringing
in, like Mr.
Graisse at the
Department of
General
Assembly and
Conference
Management,
are competent.
But what about
the process?
Weeks ago
Inner City
Press wrote
and asked the
UN if Ms.
Malcorra
recused
herself from
the process
that brought
in Graisse, so
far without
answer. How
about Mr.
Baca?
Today's
system
is more and
more shot
through with
these
corporate
conflicts
of interest.
At the UN
Joint Staff
Pension Fund,
we find that
former
PriceWaterhouseCoopers
consultant is
now Chief
Financial
Officer at
Pension Fund.
What are the
restrictions
on such hiring
from
consultants?
Meanwhile
there
a hole in the
Pension Fund,
which
defenders call
merely
"actuarial."
But the hole
is big; now,
retirement age
is to
be raised to
65 in 2014.
How is
accountable
for
under-performing
the
market? Who is
accountable at
the UN?
In
the interim,
Inner City
Press has
obtained and
is putting
online the
Board of
Auditors
report on
UMOJA, here,
including
under-estimate
of
cost and lack
of
transparency.
A well placed
source
exclusive
tells
Inner City
Press of
UMOJA, "there
was no
software
because the UN
could
not sign a
contract with
SAP. Later,
the scope was
drastically
reduced.
Bottom line is
that the
staffing table
is bloated
with D1
and P5s.
Including
posts seconded
from other
offices, there
are 11
D1s and over
15 P5s for a
staffing table
of less than
100 people."
The
UMOJA
web site has a
list of
"Official
Documents"
-- but
this audit is
not among
them. So here
it is, for
transparency.
Watch
this site.
, 
