In
Corrupt UN Guterres Flies To
Argentina for Shindig of South
South Bribery Vehicle Airfare
Qs UNanswered
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS
GATE, March 19 – With the UN
Office of South South
Cooperation so recently
exposed as a bribery vehicle
in the Ng Lap Seng - President
of the UN General Assembly
John Ashe corruption
prosecution, the vacuous media
coverage to date of the
upcoming OSSC conference in
Argentina has been
particularly revealing of the
flabby propaganda in which
today's UN drapes itself. And
now censorship: Inner City
Press reported and asked,
"February 25-2: On UN
spending, DGACM and OSSC,
please confirm or deny that
Argentina informed DGACM is
would / could not pay to fly
UN interpreters business class
to the upcoming OSSC meeting
there, and that interpreters
have been cajoled to
"volunteer" to fly economy by
being given additional time
off, to be paid for by all
member states. Also, is USG
Pollard flying economy - or
business class? Why?" But
nearly four weeks later, no
answer at all from the corrupt
administration of Antonio
Guterres, his on leave
spokesman Stephane Dujarric
and remaining deputy Farhan
Haq, who on March 19 in a
briefing Inner City Press was
banned from for the 257th day,
"the Secretary‑General is
traveling this afternoon to
Buenos Aires, Argentina, to
attend the Second High‑level
United Nations Conference on
South‑South Cooperation.
Tomorrow morning, the
Secretary‑General will deliver
remarks at the Conference,
which will focus on the “Role
of South‑South cooperation and
the implementation of the 2030
Agenda for Sustainable
Development: challenges
and opportunities”.
While in the Argentine
capital, the Secretary‑General
will meet with the country’s
President, Mauricio
Macri. The
Secretary‑General will be back
in New York on Thursday." But
as with Guterres' murky trips
to Lisbon and the Gulbenkian
Foundation which paid him and
tried to sell its oil company
to UN briber CEFC China
Energy, how is he flying? How
much does it cost the public?
Argentina is in a financial
crisis and so some months ago
informed UN Under Secretary
General Catherine Pollard that
it would not be able to meet
its obligation to pay to fly
the UN interpreters to the
conference in business class.
USG
Pollard assured Argentina that
should could get "her"
interpreters to waive their UN
right to business class on a
trip of this length. But
Pollard is not as persuasive
as she thought. There was push
back, and a secondary crisis
loomed.
Lo and
behold, a classic UN solution.
Pollard said she could get
interpreters to "volunteer" to
fly economy - by threatening
those who refused with
retribution. This Guterres
gambit appears to have worked;
Pollard brags that enough have
volunteers, some cajoled with
the promise of a compensated
day of rest that all member
states, rather than conference
host Argentina, will pay for.
But
Catherine Polland, of course,
will not herself deign to fly
economy. No, she will fly
business class as always - as
corrupt as the boss of today's
UN, the censor, Antonio
Guterres, whose spokesman
Stephane Dujarric refuses to
answer any Press questions on
these topics. A fish rots, and
continues to rot more and
more, from the head. Watch
this site.
Background: the
Office of South South
Cooperation can’t seem to
escape the legacy of the John
Ashe scandal. When he took the
helm in the aftermath, Jorge
Chediek promised to completely
reform the Office by ordering
what ultimately proved to be
an unsuccessful audit,
catapulting the Office into
even more pervasive
corruption. Instead of working
on agency mandated development
work, Mr. Chediek plays tin
pot dictator, his staff tell
Inner City Press, having
formed a sizeable patronage
network, which he uses to
advance his personal agenda.
As a result, an environment of
mediocrity and abuse of power
prevails in the Office. Over
the past year, Mr. Chediek has
engaged the services of
friends from Latin America, in
seeming violation of UNDP
regulations. Since
2017 Chediek has been
engaging the services of
Bernardo Kliksberg, an
Argentinian economist, who
according to the Office
website is listed as Strategic
Advisor for South South
Cooperation occasionally
writing short news articles
for the Office’s website to
which Mr. Chediek attaches his
name. (In the span of 14
months, Mr. Kliksberg has
written 8 articles). This is a
seemingly wasteful engagement
in line with the general waste
of UN resources, as there is
already a strategic
communications advisor in
addition to other senior
advisors on Mr. Chediek’s
payroll. While rank and file
candidates must follow a
rigorous UN recruitment
process, friends of Mr.
Chediek get to jump the line
for positions, thanks to his
utter disregard for UNDP
policy.
According to a Facebook post
from April 2018 an MoU was
signed between the Office for
South South Cooperation and
the University of Buenos Aires
to establish a chairship of a
South South programme at
theUniversity, which also
happens to be Mr. Chediek’s
alma mater. Both Mr. Chediek
and Mr. Kliksberg now serve as
co-chairs of this programme in
the University where Mr.
Kliksberg has close ties,
having served as chair of
several other academic
programmes. The chairship,
against thecontext of Mr.
Chediek already having engaged
the professional services of
Mr. Kliksberg, is a blatant
conflict of interest in
violation of UN Staff Rule 1.2
which governs the conditions
for outside employment,
regardless of whether there is
remuneration for the
particular engagement.
Moreover, appointments like
this one violate the UN terms
on retention of service,
particularly section 3, which
outlines the conditions for
the contracting of
services.
And while Mr. Chediek uses
UNDP resources for the
services of prolific
economists to elevate his
stature, the Government of
Argentina, recently bailed out
by the IMF, plans to drop a
few million on an Office of
South South Cooperation
conference, BAPA+40 this
March. Macri’s government may
have to answer to the scores
of angry Argentinians already
fed up with harsh austerity
measures as to why it is
prioritizing the funding of a
conference by a historically
corrupt UN office. Mr. Chediek
has been using the preparation
for this conference to justify
the continued retention of his
close friends. BAPA+40, which
aims to bring international
actors together to solve
development issues, in
reality, is simply a front for
Mr. Chediek’s personal
ambitions....
***
Feedback:
Editorial [at] innercitypress.com
UN Office, past & futuree?: S-303, UN, NY 10017 USA
For now UNder
Guterres: UN Delegates
Entrance Gate
and mail: Dag H.
Center
Box 20047, NY NY 10017 USA
Reporter's mobile (and weekends):
718-716-3540
Other, earlier Inner City Press are
listed here,
and some are available in the ProQuest
service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.
Copyright 2006-2019 Inner City
Press, Inc. To request reprint or other
permission, e-contact Editorial [at]
innercitypress.com for
|
,
