As
Team Ban
Pitches
Mobility to
WEOG, Takasu
Wants
Politician for
CITO
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
December 11 --
Team Ban
Ki-moon was
out in force
Tuesday
afternoon, pushing its
Mobility plan
to the
Western
European &
Other Group of
states in the
North Lawn
building.
Outside the
closed
door meeting,
Inner City
Press spoke
with some
Under
Secretaries
General and a
larger number
of WEOG
diplomats.
While WEOG may
be
swayed, the
wider Group
of 77, and the
Advisory
Committee on
Administrative
and Budgetary
Questions,
still have
doubts.
Meanwhile
some
question Team
Ban's approach
to reform and
problems.
Before
Hurricane
Sandy hit, the
UN had nearly
named a
technocrat as
the new
Chief
Information
Technology
Officer
(CITO), to
replace former
USG
Choi.
But
after the
criticism of
the
Secretariat
response to
Sandy,
including a
failure to
send even an
e-mail to the
member states,
that CITO
appointment
was stopped by
USG Yukio
Takasu,
sources tell
Inner City
Press.
The sources
say Takasu
decided that
the new CITO
should be
more
political, to
be able to
handle member
states
complaints.
Some
wonder,
wouldn't it be
better to have
a good
technical CITO
to make
sure e-mails
got send out,
rather than a
politician to
spin failure?
As Inner City
Press reported
on November
27, Ban
wants to push
through his
so-called
Mobility plan
while
questions
remain
outstanding.
His two page
November 26
letter, said
Ban is "disappointed"
with the
timelines
recommended by
the ACABQ, elections
and then
election of
the chair of
which Inner
City Press
recently
covered. (On
Monday, voting
for vice
chairman
between the
candidates of
Gabon and the
UK was
postponed,
with some idea
there might be
two co-vice
chairs.)
As
one well
placed member
of the Budget
Committee
exclusively
told Inner
City Press,
Ban's
"mobility is
now 'key' to a
bunch of
projects that
began before
it, like the
Global Field
Support
Strategy and
UMOJA," mired
in delays and
nepotism.
Ban's letter
"stress[es]
that the new
mobility
framework is
at the heart
of our key
management
initiatives
and a key
enabler for
other on-going
reform
efforts, such
as UMOJA, our
enterprise
resource
planning
system and the
Global Field
Support
Strategy."
What ACABQ
recommended on
Ban's
"mobility"
proposal
is a one year
delay in order
to answer
questions, get
more
information --
as one member
put it, for
more
"transparency
and
accountability."
There have
been growing
problems with
transparency
and answering
by at least
one of the
USGs in
attendance
with WEOG on
Tuesday. But
as an
experiment,
Inner City
Press today
focuses only
on the pending
question:
which
Congolese Army
units does the
UN work with,
to assess Ban's Human
Rights Due
Diligence
Policy?
Click here for
that.
Watch this
site.
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