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By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive, full docs

UNITED NATIONS, April 5 – At the UN with Antonio Guterres 15 months into his term as Secretary General, there's talk of reform but little transparency. The attempted power-grab of the resident coordinator system is bogged down; the proponents have yet to answer Press questions. Guterres' proposed Global Service Delivery Model (GSDM) may, despite Guterres' murky attempts to over-ride his advisory team's recommendations, be an exception, as it would eliminate jobs in New York, jobs held by Americans. The proposal, which Inner City Press first wrote about in early March, is to move to cheaper location(s) back office functions like human resources, payments and payroll.

Now Inner City Press can report -- and has published full documents on Patreon, here -- that the four cities in Guterres' filing with ACABQ, the UN's Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions. They are Budapest, Kuala Lumpur, Mexico City and Nairobi. Inner City Press was exclusively told by whistleblowers that Guterres wanted to pick Budapest as he did at UNHCR - among his other nicknames he's become known to some as Antonio "Budapest" Guterres. There's talk of wasted spending to try to get Entebbe on the list. On April 5 after publishing this exclusive, Inner City Press asked Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric, who six hours later provided no explanation at all. From the UN transcript: Inner City Press: My understanding is, after a review of 45 cities, António Guterres has selected four cities as the winners of 684 UN posts:  Mexico City, Nairobi, Kuala Lumpur, and Budapest, which it had chosen previously.  And I just wanted to know, it seems like it's a big thing that they've just told ACABQ what the four cities are.  What's the logic behind it?  What's the impact on… on… are the people… are people that are employed here, particularly local staff… are they able to move to these new jobs, or are they going to terminated?  Are new jobs going to be found for them?  And how did he select these four out of the 45 cities listed?

Spokesman:  It went through a rigorous process you know, I will have to check, but my understanding is that, obviously, whenever jobs are moved, staff always have the option of moving with the post.  But let me try to get some more detailed language on that." Six hours later, nothing. Inner City Press also asked the spokesman for the President of the General Assembly, who replied "On the Secretary-General’s Global Service Delivery Model (GSDM) report, an advance unedited version of the report has been shared with Member States and is being considered today by the Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions (ACABQ). The report will then be considered by the Fifth Committee in its second resumed session in May before going to the General Assembly plenary. Fifth Committee decisions are traditionally based on consensus." We'll have more on this. Earlier documents referred to Locations A (Budapest) B (Nairobi) C (Kuala Lumpur) and D (Mexico City) in the report.   The supplementary information containing the locations were distributed to the ACABQ members on April 4, Inner City Press has learned. The other (losing) candidates: "The United Nations Secretariat is currently conducting negotiations with the relevant member states. The names of the locations will be released to the committees through supplementary information. The 45 locations include Abidjan, Addis Ababa, Almaty, Amman, Apia, Bangkok, Beirut, Bonn, Brindisi, Budapest, Cairo, Copenhagen, Dakar,
Dubai, Entebbe, Fukuoka, Geneva, Incheon, Istanbul, Johannesburg, Kathmandu, Kigali, Kingston, Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait City, Lusaka, Manama, Mexico City, Montevideo, Nairobi, New Delhi, New York, Niamey, Panama City, Port of Spain, Rabat, Rio de Janeiro, Rome, Santiago, Suva, Tashkent, Valencia, Vienna, Washington D.C., Yaoundé." Some are surprised Guterres didn't go with Yaounde, Cameroon, since he took Biya's golden statue. Washington DC never had a chance...  The whistleblowers tell Inner City Press that dozens of jobs would be eliminated in New York, 75% of them held by women, of whom Guterres speaks so much. More than three dozens of those fired would be from the United States, which as was pointed out in September pays a quarter of the bills. What ever the wisdom, more transparency is needed. But to the contrary, Guterres and his Global Communicator Alison Smale continue to restrict the Press that asks, awarding its long time UN work space to a no-show Egyptian state media, Sanaa Youssef of Akhbar al Yom. On February 28, Guterres' UN Security told Inner City Press to stop recording, as Guterres was offering his "very very warm regards" to Sisi. Guterres' spokesman Stephane Dujarric does not answer Inner City Press' written questions; he evicted and still restricts Inner City Press. This is today's UN. And this: after Inner City Press asked at noon on March 2 about Guterres' "reform" and his spokesman Stephane Dujarric promised to look into it and provide an answer, five hours later... nothing. Some reform. From the UN's March 2 transcript: Inner City Press:  I've been hearing a lot talk about this “global service delivery model” and some people it seems if… unless I have it wrong, that there's going to be an outsourcing or offshoring of human resources and payroll jobs, and from what I've heard they're mostly general service jobs, basically a straight elimination of some 90 posts.  But what I wanted to know is people don't know where it's going.  One, can the general service staff, if they choose to, follow the jobs?  And is it true that Brazil is one of the candidates?  There's just a lot of… it's supposedly by March 15th they have to present…Spokesman:  Let me… I will try to get an update for you." Five hours later, nothing. Even on the environment, the UN's last refuge as it fails under Antonio Guterres on conflict prevention and anti-corruption, the UN is in decay. Guterres' deputy Amina J. Mohammed has refused Press questions since November on her role in signing 4000 certificates to export from Nigeria and Cameroon endangered rosewood already in China. Guterres, Mohammed and Alison Smale's only response has been to censor and continue to restrict the Press which asks, despite 5000 signature petition, UNanswered. Now whistleblowers in UNEP have written to Guterres, and excusively sent a copy to Inner City Press on "UNEP mis management, harassment and misuse of government resources Dear Mr. Solheim, It is almost 1.5 years since you became the Executive Director of UNEP.   While our wish would have been to address the issues below with you in person, this message is being sent to you anonymously for our protection, and given threats, harassment and actions being taken against staff who have tried to speak out, particularly as pertains to financial and human resource anomalies. i) Executive Office – Waste of government resources: We constantly receive feedback on the limited financial resources in the organisation.  Since you came on board, you have established numerous positions in the Executive Office, leading to an estimated 25 positions with about 14 professionals, while all previous Executive Directors worked effectively with only about 7 professionals...The additional cost of these positions is over USD 1.1 million in a year.  These funds could well be used to implement activities that meet our obligations and those of our Member States.  You have gone ahead to establish a temporary P5 Deputy Chief of Staff, in addition to having a Chief of Staff D1 and a P3 Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff.  The new position will cost another USD 206,000.  This adds up to USD 1.3 million wasted resources. How inefficient can an Executive Office be to warrant so many staff and special support to one person, when there are no sufficient resources to support activities in the substantive Divisions! You have inappropriately announced to the Member States that you will be advertising the positions of the D2 Director, Ecosystem Division and Director, New York Office without even discussing this with Mette Wilkie and Elliot Harris, the incumbents of the posts respectively.  The organisation is being led by your personal preferences and those of, the Chief of Staff, Anne LeMore who you brought into the organisation -and Sami Dimassi, Officer in-Charge of Corporate Services, whom you appointed against the decision of OHRM, given the un-merited selection. You appointed a P5, Gary from another agency to come and lead the Policy Division, while you have an already capable D1, Sheila Aggarwal-Khan.  This is another example of a wasted USD 205,600.
You are hardly available to provide leadership to the organisation as you are constantly traveling together with your special assistants most specifically Hao Chen.  Millions of resources have been lost in your business class travels, some of which are not necessary. ii)  Corporate Services Division, illegal actions, personal gain & conflict of interest: You have still maintained Sami Dimassi as officer in charge of Corporate Services Division, despite the temporary selection being rejected by OHRM. We wonder why Sami has been mandated to be making key management decisions yet he has not gone through a proper recruitment process as officer In-charge of that Division and has no qualifications and experience to match the job profile. His main activities are scuttling other people’s careers and family lives. It is unimaginable that United Nations can allow a staff member in the calibre of a Director to continue in the system and continue threatening other staff members including senior staff while quoting your name. The Secretary General in his previous address to staff has stated that he will not entertain any form of harassment in the Organization yet Sami continues to do this in all his dealing with staff from certain quarters. The following are a few examples of the mandate you have granted to your appointee against the decision of the United Nations Secretary General. Sami who is a Lebanese national, with Canadian citizenship in the system, has appointed Fadi Abou-Elias, another Lebanese to lead the budget activities, separating these from finance and the able leadership of Moses Tefula who is an expert with a doctorate in the field and with extensive experience. It is obvious to any expert in accounting and finance, the separation has been done to benefit specific individuals. Also, other UN agencies have consolidated these functions. Sami subsequently created a P3 position in the budget unit and appointed yet another Lebanese national, Joseph K. against the programme support budget (PSC).  These funds are supposed to provide programme support to the MEAs and Divisions that bring in the resources, in addition to corporate administrative support.  In addition, Sami and Fadi managed to enforce the selection of Fadi’s wife Nada Matta as P3 Fund Management Officer in the Science Division (where Sami worked previously) after being placed on temporary post to enable a quick appointment.  All budgetary matters of the Division are well sorted by her husband Fadi, bringing a conflict of interest, since he is the same one managing the organisation’s overall budget, against the UN financial rules and regulations. Much of her work is managed by her husband which is obvious in her change in decisions and guidance provided to the Division, once she receives her husband’s input to questions she may have answered without much knowledge. Recently, you appointed Emanuele Corino, P4 to lead all human resources and administration issues.  Emanuele is no expert in HR and has very limited knowledge in the field. He is an IT-expert Sir.  You have taken this responsibility from a capable P5, Mariama, with decades of expertise in the field.  Emanuele came on board as a consultant through UNOPS, who was then appointed as a UNOPS staff and despite Secretariat questions of his illegal appointment to UNEP he continued to lead procurement activities.  He is being supported by an excellent P4 who is an expert in HR and would better lead this docket if not the P5 Mariama.  In addition, the cost of paying Mariama,USD 205,600goes to waste as all her work has been handed over to an incapable Emanuele, and staff under her supervision deployed to other Divisions. Emanuele is propagating the use of UNOPS in hiring of HR services and procurement services. Consultants and staff, including in your office Sir, have been hired through UNOPS to circumvent the UN rules and regulations and he endorses it, being a beneficiary of such illegal processes. It also leads to misuse of resources provided by member states as UNOPS charges for these services that are provided for free by UNON. He is doing all this in collaboration with two senior HR officers in UNON and a senior Finance officer in UNON-DAS who has been promised to take over a position in UNEP. We request for a full investigation into this matter and the illegal conduct of the staff including misuse of his position. All the above positions have been granted to men, while you continue to preach gender (and in respect to the gender parity strategy) but unfortunately you are not leading by practice.  Sir, it is now public knowledge that the Chief of Finance in your organization, Moses Tefula has filed a case in the United Nations Dispute Tribunal for suspension of illegal action to move him, and to suddenly and unilaterally reclassify his position to a post downwards and transfer him to a position not commensurate with his grade. More details are publicly available in the UNDT website on UNDP/NBI/017/124. Sami and his support group is the architect behind this illegal action so that he can hand-over the powerful docket of Senior Finance Officer to his friends as is already happening. Sir, we remind you that the Member States have entrusted UNEP with close to a billion US dollars of annual contributions and it is un-imaginable that management of such resources can be delegated to friendship circles. While management may not like some staff members especially those from the black race to hold such key positions, we cannot allow the contributions of member states which come from the taxes of their nationalities to be jeopardized. iii) Harassment and illegal actions to get rid of colleagues who do not meet your, Sami Dimassi and Anne Le More’s liking. Efforts have been made to cause instability in the Divisions with missions purported to review the Division.  This has created fear among staff, uncertainty and worry on who will be gotten rid of, or who will be moved to an extra-budgetary post (XB) or contract non-renewal, in order to be sent home.  In this case XB is assumed to be any funds that are not from the regular budget or from the Environment Fund.  This was done in the Regional Office for Africa, the Communication Division, Geneva office and other offices where missions are being undertaken to threaten staff. A brutal example is the move of a P3 Regional Information Expert from Bahrain, along with four others because Sami did not like her, despite her previous performance appraisals meeting and in some instances exceeding expectations.  She has a young family of two children whom she has had to leave in Bahrain under threat that she either takes up the move to Nairobi or leaves the organisation.  She was moved from a regular budget (RB) post, to temporary Environment Fund (Fund Reserve) for one year and is to then be moved to an extra-budgetary (XB) post that has no resources, in the expectation that if no funds are forthcoming or if she is not able to mobilise funds, she will be out on the streets.  This is after service to the organisation for 10 years. This is brut ant misuse of authority by Sami. It is against the “Family-friendly policies” of the UN system wide policy on gender parity which requires decision on staff mobility to be communicated at least six months prior to the moves and moves scheduled six months following the completion of the school year or accommodate the family needs otherwise as appropriate. The poor staff member is under distress, separated from her family who are in a foreign duty station and has to incur personal trips to see her young ones.
In contrast, you, Sir, have approved that your friend, a D1, Lisa Svensson can work from Europe, because for personal reasons she does not wish to work in Nairobi.  Her big office in Nairobi remains vacant with her name and organisational equipment while the same has to be provided again by another office in Europe.  She leads the marine team remotely as the rest of the staff under her responsibility are in Nairobi. Sir, how inhuman can you and Sami be, to summon one staff member, who is from a developing country against her wish, separating her from her young family, but provide a golden platter for another who is from a developed country... When you came on board in 2016, you immediately began with changing the organisation’s name, claiming not to understand acronyms, which have been used since the establishment of the organisation over four decades ago.  The whole world knows UNEP, UNDP, UNICEF etc.  Are you purporting that these should have been UN development, UN children… so that one day you Sir, can understand what they do, and that the work of the organisation has not been understood since 1972 due to its use of the acronym UNEP?
Despite numerous interventions during the meetings of the Committee of Permanent Representatives (CPRs) questioning the legitimacy of this change from UNEP to UN Environment, you have given a deaf ear.  Most are the times that you open the session and then take off, leaving your Deputy Executive Director Ibrahim Thiaw to find excuses for you... You forget that the rules are not set by the organisation, but through it by the Member States of the UN... You talk of reform and efficiency.  With all the above, and many more examples that would result in a very lengthy document,you have failed the organisation, you have failed us. Your actions are provoking staff to boycott the next Town Hall meeting in respect of all colleagues affected by your actions and those of your circle of friends that are running the organisation to peril. Our plea is to call for an immediate audit of the organisation, intervention and investigation." We'll have more on this. A Climate Risk event was held at the UN on January 31, complete with a delayed press conference with four speakers. Inner City Press asked them about the role of the UN, not just as a venue but as an actor, with a Deputy Secretary General Amina J. Mohammed who in 2017 signed 4000 certificates for already-exported endangered rosewood in China. The UN Global Compact accepted CEFC China Energy until Inner City Press repeated asking about its role as beneficiary of a UN bribery scheme to get oil in Uganda and Chad; China Energy Fund Committee is *still* in Special Consultative status with ECOSOC. Periscope video here, since the UN has withheld its, under UNTV boss Alison Smale.  Among the panelists, Betty Yee, California's Controller, repeatedly cited transparency. Fred Samama of Amundi to his credit acknowledged there is a danger of green-washing. Peter Damgaard Jensen of PKA said the UN could / should help emerging markets. (This is true, but today in Cameroon for example, the UN only supports colonialism and exploitation.) Iconic Jack Ehnes of CalSTRS appeared sympathetic. But will they continue to blithely provide a platform for the greenwashing not only of oil companies like CEFC China Energy, but of censoring UN officials like Amina J. Mohammed, who helped export endangered rosewood then refused all Press questions on it, and continues to censor and restrict the Press which asks? We'll have more on this - and on “The Investor Agenda.” Amid UN bribery scandals, failures in countries from Cameroon to Yemen and declining transparency, today's UN does not even pretend to have content neutral rules about which media get full access and which are confined to minders or escorts to cover the General Assembly.

Inner City Press, which while it pursue the story of Macau-based businessman Ng Lap Seng's bribery of President of the General Assembly John Ashe was evicted by the UN Department of Public Information from its office, is STILL confined to minders as it pursues the new UN bribery scandal, of Patrick Ho and Cheikh Gadio allegedly bribing President of the General Assembly Sam Kutesa, and Chad's Idriss Deby, for CEFC China Energy.

Last week Inner City Press asked UN DPI where it is on the list to be restored to (its) office, and regain full office - and was told it is not even on the list, there is no public list, the UN can exclude, permanently, whomever it wants. This is censorship, and has been accepted and even encouraged by what has become the UN Censorship Alliance, which accepted funds from Ng Lap Seng's South South News and had Inner City Press ejected from the UN Press Briefing Room as it inquired into the story.

When this UNCA held its annual meeting on January 29, it could barely reach quorom (Periscope here); it covered over the glass doors of the clubhouse the UN gives it with a sign board.

After UNSG @AntonioGuterres didn't disclose met Bashir & DSG silent on #Cameroon & DPI no answer, UN Censorship All… https://t.co/IpqoXqfkG9

— Inner City Press (@innercitypress) January 29, 2018

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