In
Ban's
UN, "Africans
Come Last,"
Columbia
Connection,
Nepotism in
OIOS?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNdislosed
Location,
June 7 -- "Ban
Ki-moon left
the Africans
for last,"
said a well
placed UN
source who
called Inner
City Press
after Ban's
spokesman
Martin Nesirky
announced two
African
appointments
at
Thursday's UN
noon briefing,
which Inner
City Press did
not attend.
As
Ban has handed
out jobs,
African have
been left out.
He announced
that his
Tanzanian
Deputy
Secretary
General Asha
Rose Migiro
would be
leaving --
well, Inner
City Press
announced it
before Ban
did, but
the decision
has been made
-- and named
as her
replacement
the Swede
Jan Eliasson.
Then
there was
another
Swedish move,
or move of a
Swede: Karin
Landgren
from Burundi
to apparently
a best envoy
post, Liberia.
(Landgren had
been
considered as
Navi Pillay's
deputy in New
York but lost,
Inner
City Press
exclusively
reported, in
part because
the Swede
Margot
Wallstrom was
just then
named envoy on
Sexual
Violence in
Conflict.)
Thursday
Migiro's
chief of staff
Parfait
Onanga-Anyanga
of Gabon,
always
civil, was
moved out of
New York to
take the
Burundi post
left behind
by Landgren.
We
wish him well:
already,
Burundi threw
Charles Petrie
out, and
Landgren's
reporting got
a little more
government
friendly. One
wag
bitterly
asked, What's
a few death by
hand grenade
attacks among
friends?
Also
on Thursday,
Ban filled a
brand new
position,
Special
Adviser on
Post-2015
Development
Planning, with
Nigeria's
Amina J.
Mohammed. She
is currently a
professor at
Columbia
University.
Combined
with Ban's
MDGs (and
Middle East?)
adviser
Jeffrey Sachs,
there seems to
be a
straight line
from
Morningside
Heights,
Columbia's
neighborhood,
to
becoming a Ban
adviser, just
as Ban's chief
of staff has
been hiring
from her
native
Argentina and
the World Food
Program where
she used
to work.
Then
there's this:
UN sources
complaint to
Inner City
Press that the
head
of the Office
of Internal
Oversight
Services
Carman
Lapointe is
hiring
Canadians with
her same first
name, and
cronies from
previous jobs
at the World
Bank and IFAD
-- this in the
one UN
office that is
supposed to be
fighting
nepotism.
Ban
Ki-mon in
hiring her
said,
"Transparency
and
accountability
are essential
to the work of
the
Organization,
and OIOS is
critical to
advancing that
effort.
That is why
the
Secretary-General
acted."
She was
replacing
anothe Swede,
who trashed
Ban published,
Inga Britt
Alenius.
If Ban Ki-moon
is so
commitment to
"transparency
and
accountability,"
why
isn't UN
hiring
information
available in
real time?
Only at the
UN...
, 
