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By Matthew Russell Lee & sources, Exclusive

UN GATE, Sept 8 – UNESCO, like the whole UN system under Antonio Guterres is falling apart in corruption and fraud.

  Inner City Press has been reporting on serious malfeasance by the French Audrey Azoulay administration at UNESCO in Paris, almost as bad as Antonio Guterres' corruption in and of the UN in New York. A fish rots from the head.

It seems our efforts to expose the unprecedented transgressions at UNESCO are beginning to bear some fruit. After years of uninterrupted abuse of power by the French Drama Queen, DG Audrey Azoulay, the major financial error committed by her management team has sounded the death knell. 

  The lawless dealing with the 2023 UNESCO deficit exposed by Inner City Press (here and here) led to decision by member states at the latest session of the Executive Board to have the Internal Oversight Services Division (IOS) investigating the scam. The full report by IOS, document 220 EX/27.INF, prepared at the request of the Executive Board, is now available here. 

  Even before making the report public, DG Azoulay, informed in advance of its devastating content for her and her administration, chopped the head of her Chief financial officer (CFO), Magdolna Bona. This was expected. However, instead of immediately dismissing her, as should have happened in any normally functioning administration, DG Azoulay preferred simply to remove her from her CFO duties, but keep Bona in the Human Resources Division, where she will be in charge of the financial reform of UNESCO's Medical Benefit Fund. 

  To summarize Audrey Azoulay's decision, after Magdolna Bona broke the rules while handling UNESCO's budget and finances, DG Azoulay gave her, as a sanction, the responsibility of advising on the finances of another important UNESCO service. Boundless administrative idiocy can only explain this decision, unless Bona has more incriminating information against DG Azoulay to trade off and use to protect herself.  According to our HR sources, Inner City Press has been informed that Magdolna Bona's transfer to HR is temporary, until DG Azoulay finds a way to separate her from UNESCO with a solid financial compensation of 18 months' accumulated fat salary at her current D-2 level. Let's recap this one too, because it's just as senseless.

  Magdolna Bona has been sanctioned by DG Azoulay for her serious fault by obtaining a temporary post in Human resources at D-2 level, while serenely awaiting compensation of some 250,000 US dollars - to be paid with taxpayers' money - for her major professional error.  If member states were to let this happen, it would be the end of all credibility for the governing bodies, and in particular for the Executive Board, which decided to have this IOS report. We will be following DG Azoulay's next steps with regard to Magdolna Bona very closely.  The IOS report also decisively threw Magdolna Bona's direct boss, ADG for Management, Nicholas Jeffreys of the UK, under the bus. All the inappropriate administrative decisions and actions taken by Bona could never have happened without the prior approval of Nicholas Jeffreys. As the IOS report proves, he protected CFO Bona in her efforts to cover the Agency's 2023 deficit without respecting rules and procedures. His obscure management style and decision-making speaks volumes about the current state of UNESCO’s governance - abuse of authority, disregard for rules and regulations, a sense of total impunity for senior managers, and so on. 

  What's more, the IOS report makes it clear that Nicholas Jeffreys decided that the best way out was to hide from DG Azoulay the truth about the real state of faulty decision-making on this highly sensitive budgetary issue. Paragraph 22 of the IOS report is very explicit in this respect:

“22. Further, during the 41 C/5 budget closure and particularly at the time the overcommitment issues were being dealt with, the communications regarding the budget closure from the CFO and ADG/ADM’s office to the Director-General reflected serious shortcomings. These included a lack of transparency in terms of failure to timely disclose critical information, issuance of contradictory updates on the extent of the overcommitments, and incorrect advice on the application of UNESCO Financial Regulations on the use of 42 C/5 funds for funding the 41 C/5 overcommitments.” 

In any administration prior to that of DG Azoulay, half of this paragraph would have been sufficient for the two senior officials responsible for these serious failings, UNESCO's CFO and ADG/ADM, to be immediately dismissed. On the basis of these IOS conclusions, the ADG/ADM should already have resigned on his own initiative if he had any sense of probity and dignity as an international civil servant. Clearly, he has none.  This case of financial mismanagement is not only a breach of confidence between DG Azoulay and her CFO and ADG/ADM, but also between the member states and these senior officials. It's not the first time Bona and Jeffreys have lied, but this time it was one lie too many, and the member states did their job by requesting the IOS report, which completely destroyed the reputation of both. So, there's only one way out of this situation.

Either DG Azoulay will make the right decision, or she'll have to go down with them, which isn't the worst option.  The Executive Board now has two tasks. Firstly, to ensure that Bona leaves UNESCO without any financial compensation, and secondly that Nicholas Jeffreys is dismissed for serious professional misconduct, notably for telling the DG and Member States untruths.

A former senior UNESCO official told Inner City Press: “Nicholas Jeffreys is definitely carbonized by the IOS report. His days are numbered, but he seems to be the last to know it. As usual, he is simply miserably pathetic”. 

 In reality, ADG/ADM's chances of survival are nil, not least because of the other major findings of the IOS audit report, namely: “Weak control environment; Loss of institutional knowledge and weakened capacity; Ineffective risk management; Ineffective budget monitoring; Poor management of budget closure; Ineffective communication: During the 41 C/5 budget closure the communications from the CFO and ADG/ADM to the Director-General reflected serious shortcomings. These included a lack of transparency in terms of failure to timely disclose critical information to the Chief Executive, issuance of contradictory updates on the extent of the overcommitments, and incorrect advice on the application of UNESCO Financial Regulations on the use of 42 C/5 funds for funding the 41 C/5 overcommitments”. 

  Make no mistake though. If what is described in the IOS report has happened, it is not coming out of the blue, but through the fault of DG Azoulay and her corporate responsibility. It was she who appointed senior officials who lacked basic standards of morality, ethics, honesty and decency. It was she who decided to get rid of all the competent and loyal staff members of UNESCO and replace them with her cronies. Ultimately, it is she who is responsible, and it is she who must be blamed for the decisions that have led to UNESCO's current situation of deep crisis.  This is why member states must continue to ask further questions about accountability and take further decisions on the necessary sanctions

  . This time, it's the member states' money, or more precisely their taxpayers' money, and there's no escaping the accountability check. A few voices have been missing so far, however: those of the European Union and the Nordic countries. What a shame. This is where UNESCO stands today, a UN agency ravaged by harassment of staff and financial misappropriations, propitious to the flourishing of abuse of power, corruption and nepotism. Just like the wider UN of Antonio Guterres, who still bans Inner City Press from any entry while allowing in even indicted "media" charged with violating the US Foreign Agent Registration Act, and money laundering. Watch this site.

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