Cisco Talks on Poverty While Getting Sole Source UN Contracts, Ban on Audits and UNDP

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, November 1 -- That a website to track alleviation of poverty and suffering has gone online is surely good. The project, MDGmonitor.org, cost $200,000, three-quarters of it from private companies. Two of the companies, Cisco and Google, were given free publicity at the UN on Thursday, at a press conference with and UN Development Program administrator Kemal Dervis and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who had just come from a meeting of the UN Global Compact to meet with Dervis. But when Inner City Press asked Cisco's representative Carlos Dominguez about its participation in censorship of the Internet, all he would say is, I am not the right person, we will get back to you. What did Cisco expect at the UN, one reporter asked, no questions about human rights? When Inner City Press asked the Google representative if Google is a member of the UN Global Compact -- it is not in the database -- and if not, why not, he said he didn't know but would quickly provide the information. Video here. Ten hours later, nothing. (Click here for reporting by Inner City Press on the Global Compact meeting).

            When asked how much it had contributed to the project, the Cisco representative said that his company does not like to disclosure such information. Given the UN's and UNDP's talk of transparency, Inner City Press later asked a UNDP spokesperson how much Cisco had given, but was told only "$150,000 by the combined private sector."

            Meanwhile from within the UN the following description of Cisco benefiting from a no-bid sole source contract:

Subj: Another UN "No-Bid" Contract 

From: Name withheld to avoid retaliation

To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com

Date: 10/25/2007 10:07:09 AM Eastern Standard Time

Hello there, The Information Technology Service Division – ITSD for the UN Secretariat, headed by Mr. Eduardo Blinder and his personal friend, the Chief of Operations Mr. John Campbell. They have recently purchased a new phone System for the UN, a PBX – Private Branch Exchange to replace the old phone system, so far so good. The contracting process was shrouded with secrecy and circumvented almost all the UN procurement rules and regulations: The contract was awarded to Cisco without Bid - "No-Bid contract" in the amount of US$12 million, $7 million for equipment and $5 million for consulting service. ITSD never purchase consulting service the way it was done in this contract as it has many Engineers in staff that could do this type work with very little help from the vendor. Mr. Campbell awarded the contract to Cisco without even consulting his own staff Engineer but rather completely relied on Cisco's advice.

ITSD's reason to justify the "No-bid Contract" that the UN wants to standardize on Cisco but PBX is not a simple hub, router or switch it’s rather quite different technology and the Industry leaders and de facto standards are Nortel, Avaya etc. Furthermore, the claim of Standardization proofed to be totally false. It turned out the Cisco PBX Mr. Campbell purchased DOES NOT integrates and Incompatible with the current UN Messaging Infrastructure. So he UN is left either to wait for a year or more until Cisco bring the PBX technology to Industry Standards because Cisco is lagging behind in this technology or the UN to purchase different equipments from another vendor and both cases will result in squandering few millions of Dollars from the UN funds.

Mr. Campbell deceptively managed to the get the contract awarded to Cisco with having the UN legal Council review the contract as a Standard Procurement Procedure, while Cisco attorneys made certain they squeeze every penny out of the UN in this contract. Basically the UN now has a defective contract that is INCOMPATIBLE with the UN existing Infrastructure. The whole process was conducted behind closed doors between Mr. Campbell and Cisco sales rep. The UN staff Engineers were never consulted before awarding the contract. Questions that beg answers: Will the UN make this contact available to the public based on the freedom of Information act? Why the UN legal department did NOT vet the contract before awarding it to Cisco? Why "No-Bid"? How to explain ITSD claims about standardization while the purchased Cisco PBX is INCOMPATIBLE with the existing UN messaging Infrastructure? Why Mr. Campbell selected Cisco which is on the peripheral small player in the market of PBX. The de facto industry leaders in this market are Nortel, Avaya etc.  Good luck and keep up the good work.

            Ban Ki-moon left Thursday's press conference before the question-and-answer session started. (Inner City Press did manage to ask him two questions outside the Global Compact meeting, see below).

Clicking for the MDGs, audits and DPRK not shown

Ban was rushing, it turns out, to meet with Kemal Dervis. Among the topics was negative report on Dervis' UNDP and its retaliation against whistleblowers, its lack of transparency in North Korea and elsewhere, and its refusal to give copies of its audits to member states, including those on its executive board. In the hall outside the Global Compact meeting, Inner City Press asked Ban if he was satisfied with what had come of the previous week's Chief Executive Board meeting, at least on the topic of audits. Mr. Ban responded:

"There was a long discussion about how we can make available this information, internal audits, by the heads of specialized agencies and funds and programs. This will apply to all of the UN system, including specialized agencies. We have agreed that we need to set common standards and common goals. We will bring this matter to the respective governing boards."

            Inner City Press wrote about this round-and-round yesterday. But Ban's critique of Dervis is said to have gone beyond audits. Perhaps significantly, North Korea was left out of the MDGmonitor.org's list of countries. Inner City Press asked Dervis to explain this; Dervis responded in terms of lack of information. But even Somalia and Myanmar are on the list.

    Near 5 p.m. deadline, another Cisco spokesperson finally spun their answer:

Subj: Cisco
From: jegreeso [at] cisco.com
To: Matthew.lee [at] innercitypress.com
Date: 11/1/2007 4:28:37 PM Eastern Standard Time

Hi Matthew, I'm sorry Carlos wasn't able to answer your question re: our work in China at the UN event today.  As we've stated before Congress:

Cisco is proud of the role we have played in making the Internet ubiquitous around the world.  While the Internet is still not perfect and may at times be misused there has been no greater force in connecting people and spreading the power of ideas.  The debate on China and its communication policies is a discussion that needs to continue to take place, however it is a discussion that should be driven at a governmental level and not within corporate circles.  To be clear, however, Cisco Systems does not in any way participate in the censorship of information by governments.  Cisco supports transparency in the way the Internet is used and complies with applicable regulations. To that end, Cisco has not specially designed or marketed products for any government, or any regional market, to censor Internet content from citizens

            We'll see.

* * *

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

  Because a number of Inner City Press' UN sources go out of their way to express commitment to serving the poor, and while it should be unnecessary, Inner City Press is compelled to conclude this installment in a necessarily-ongoing series by saluting the stated goals of the UN agencies and many of their staff. Keep those cards, letters and emails coming, and phone calls too, we apologize for any phone tag, but please continue trying, and keep the information flowing.

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