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With UN's Ban in DC, Procurement
Scandals Unanswered, No Protection by UN Security
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS - DC, March 10 --
With UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon slated to meet with U.S.
President Barack
Obama in Washington, a report
criticizing UN procurement was raised at the UN's
noon briefing in New York on Tuesday. Ban's Deputy Spokesperson Marie
Okabe
read a statement denouncing a media summary of the report, by the UN's
own
Joint Inspection Unit, but she refused to answer any questions, even as
to
which of the five recommendations the UN Department of Management is
claiming
it will act on.
Only last week, Ms. Okabe's colleague Farhan Haq
erroneously stated that
the UN was not receiving computer services from Satyam, the so-called
Indian
Enron, through the UN-affiliated International Computing Center,
and that the
UN's now scandal-plagued Procurement Division covered the ICC. Haq's
subsequent
statement reversing what he'd told Inner City Press explains, some say,
Ms.
Okabe's refusal to answer any questions at all about the UN's
procurement
problems.
Inner City Press asked for the UN's response to the
report, particularly
its criticism of the UN's waiving of competition such as in its $250
million
sole-source contract for camps in Darfur, which even the UN's
Headquarters
Committee on Contracts then its General Assembly criticized. Ms.
Okabe said, please
don't ask any more questions about this, what I've just read out is all
I have.
What she'd read out was an attack on a media summary, not the
JIU report Inner
City Press has asked about.
Ms. Okabe told other reporters, "Few of you have
read the
report,"
as an explanation for not answering any questions about it.
UN's Ban and Barack Obama, transparency not shown
Inner
City Press
also asked for an explanation of the statement by Ban's envoy in
Madagascar
that the former mayor and opposition leader is "under [UN]
protection in a
diplomatic residence." Who in the UN system, which has in recent
months
allowed its envoy to
Niger Robert Fowler to travel without security until he
was kidnapped on the way back from a Canadian-owned mining company, is
providing this protection? The UN is not
actually providing any security, Ms. Okabe aid. At least it's an answer.
Afterwards, Inner City Press asked how Ms. Okabe's
office, which is the
media's interface with Ban Ki-moon, is assisting UN correspondents who
wish to
cover Ban's trip to DC, his meetings with President Obama and leaders
of the
House and Senate. "I don't have any information on that," Ms. Okabe
said. Ah, transparency... Watch this
site.
Click here for Inner City
Press' Feb 26 UN debate
Click
here
for Feb.
12 debate on Sri Lanka http://bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs/17772?in=11:33&out=32:56
Click here for Inner City Press' Jan.
16, 2009 debate about Gaza
Click here for Inner City Press'
review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate
Click here for Inner
City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press'
December 12 debate on UN double standards
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
Click here for Inner City
Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
These
reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
Click
here
for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali
National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
Feedback: Editorial
[at] innercitypress.com
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