UN
Confirms ICP on Use of UNOPS
But Won't
Say If
Payee Is UN
Staffer, How Accountable
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Exclusive Series
UNITED NATIONS,
March 23 – How transparent, or
intentionally opaque, is
today's UN? After Inner City
Press exclusively reported
that staff on the UN's 38th
floor were paid through the UN
Office of Project Services and
not the regular budget, the UN
admitted it but refused to
answer Inner City Press'
follow up questions, including
whether a person paid by UNOPS
is a UN staff member. From the
March 23 UN transcript:
Inner City Press:
You said these new posts are
all discussed with budgetary
bodies, meaning, I guess, the
Fifth Committee or
ACABQ. And I've checked,
and my understanding is, with
ACABQ, they're only told of
extra budgetary, meaning
non-regular budget posts if
they're at the USG
[Under-Secretary-General] or D
[Director] level.
They're not told of the P
[Professional]. They're
not, if the 38th Floor is able
to get funds, whether from
UNDP [United Nations
Development Programme] or
UNOPS or UNEP [United Nations
Environment Programme] or any
other fund, ACABQ is not
told. So II'm wondering,
you seem to indicate that they
had all the information.
Also, they don't share the
information with Member
States. They don't
represent Member States.
They're an advisory committee
that issues reports down the
road. So how would you
explain this? Have you
disclosed the P staff on 38
paid by extra budgetary
resources to any budgetary
body?
Deputy Spokesman: No,
no, all of the relevant
information for all UN staff,
by the way, not just Executive
Office, but throughout the
system, all that goes through
both… either the Advisory
Committee on Administrative
and Budgetary Questions or the
Fifth Committee. So they
get the relevant documents.
Inner
City Press: Is
the UNOPS-funded person a UN
staff member?
Deputy Spokesman: I just
told you what information they
had yesterday. I don't
have anything further on that.
Inner City Press: And the last
one's a bigger question.
I've heard…
Deputy Spokesman: Hold
on. Linda?
From the
March 22 UN
transcript:
Inner City Press:
On the answer on UNOPS.
I wanted to, I guess, ask it a
little bit broader, because my
understanding is that there's
a proposal to the Fifth
Committee to approve a number
of new positions on the 38th
Floor. But, until they
rule… so I guess I wanted to
know, rather than piss and…
you know, pick and… pick and,
you know, choose and see if
you say that… I heard
Lusophone; you said no
Lusophone. I heard
UNOPS; you said, yes, one
UNOPS. Can I ask you
generally about UNDP [United
Nations Development
Programme]? And two,
could you just provide a list
of the people that have been
hired on [the 38th Floor] to
work on political matters and
whether, in fact, they have
posts currently in the UN
budget, and if they don't, how
they're being paid? You
could even do it without the
names, but there's a lot of
questions that people have
about people hired where
there's no underlying posts to
be filled.
Deputy Spokesman:
Okay. Well, the bottom
line is that, as I made clear
just now, all of this… all the
questions of posts are that
they go through the normal
budgetary process. And
so, whatever posts we have for
the 38th Floor will be posts
that we get approved from the
budgetary system.
Inner
City
Press: But,
I guess my… my question is,
until May and these posts are
approved, are you saying that
there's nobody that's working
on [the 38th Floor] for which
a post has yet to be approved
by the Fifth Committee?
That's the question that I'm
asking.
Deputy Spokesman:
Whatever the posts are, those
are posts for which we're
seeking budgetary funds from
the 38th… from the budgetary
committees.
Inner
City
Press: But,
if you haven't received the
approval yet, how do you pay
them?
Deputy Spokesman: There
are ways to pay people up
until you get the funding, but
we're going to go through the
normal budgetary process as we
do through the previous
Secretaries-General, as well.
Inner
City Press: Can
you just put out a fact sheet
on that? I guess what
I'm wondering is, it does seem
if there's… if people are
being paid and it's yet to be
approved, there's obviously
some lack…
Deputy Spokesman: The
facts are all information that
are provided to the budgetary
committees. They have
that, and it's their
information.
Inner City
Press had asked UN Secretary
General Antonio Guterres' top
two spokesmen simple factual
questions: who works on the
38th floor? Who pays them? But
the two, both holdovers from
the Ban Ki-moon
administration, refused to
answer, so on March 20 Inner
City Press published its scoop
about the murky use of trust
funds to pay people on the
UN's 38th floor. Even on March
21 when Inner City Press asked
Guterres' deputy spokesman
Farhan Haq who pays whom, he
refused to answer. Video
here; from the UN
transcript:
Inner City Press:
I'd asked in writing but,
having gotten no answer, I
want to ask you in person,
which is, on the 38th Floor,
is it possible to get a list
of who is now… now that it's
80-some… 80 days, I guess,
into this Administration,
who's working up there?
And I wanted to know in
particular a breakdown of
who's paid by the UN, who's
paid by countries, and if —
just a yes-or-no
question. If there is a…
any type of fund — some have
called it a Lusophone fund;
some have called it… said it's
run out of UNOPS [United
Nations Office for Project
Services] — that, is in fact,
paying individuals that work
on the 38th Floor. And,
if so, are they UN
staffers? Is it
something else? Can you…
I mean, I asked you on Friday
in… like, is there a list, and
is it possible to get this
breakdown simply to understand
how it's being run up there?
Deputy Spokesman: I
don't believe that there's a
list by payment.
Obviously, we don't go into
the contract details of
individual staff
members. We could try to
get you a list of the people
who are part of the Executive
Office.
Inner
City
Press: But
it's not… I guess… I want to
put it in this context.
It's not a matter of the
personal details of the
individual. It's a
matter of saying it is… it
would be important for the
public to know if somebody
working on the 38th Floor is,
in fact, paid by a country as
opposed from the regular
budget.
Deputy Spokesman: The
financial details of how the
Executive Office works, all
that is shared with the
relevant budgetary committees
of the General Assembly, and
so they have that information.
Inner
City
Press: So
has… has the… has the
Executive Office of the
Secretary-General shared
information about a Lusophone
fund or any fund run by UNOPS
that pays individuals on the
38th Floor?
Deputy Spokesman: I'm
not aware of any such thing as
you're terming it. As
you know, at different times,
if people are seconded by
Governments or otherwise
governments defray
arrangements, that
information, whether for this
Secretary-General or for
previous Secretaries-General,
is shared with the relevant
budgetary committees.
Inner
City Press:
Right, but would it be… this
is my final thing. Would
it be paid directly from a
country to its own national or
through a fund run by some UN
system fund? And, if so,
I'm asking for details about
that because…
Deputy Spokesman: Again,
that is information that gets
shared with the budgetary
committees. They will
have that.
Haq and
his boss Stephane Dujarric
refused for four days to
answer this: "This is a Press
request for a list of who is
working in the Executive
Office of the Secretary
General; within that, who is
paid by the UN general budget,
who is paid by or through any
other UN-affiliated fund
including but not limited to
UNOPS and who funds that, and
who is paid by / seconded from
a country." The question about
UNOPS grows from a number of
sources having exclusively
told Inner City Press that
Secretary General Antonio
Guterres, a former prime
minister of Portugal, has been
using a "Lusophone fund" in
the UN Office of Project
Services, UNOPS, to pay
several of those working for
him on the 38th floor. Why not
just answer?
On March
20, as Inner City Press
pointed out the seeming
hypocrisy not only of the UN
preaching media freedom while
having evicted and still
restricting Inner City Press
but also of an all-male UN
team meeting with the DR
Congo, it was told Yes, UNOPS
is involved, citing to General
Assembly documents saying that
some working in the UN do not
have to be categories, or
disclosed, as staff. But isn't
this opacity simply inviting
budget cuts? We'll have more
on this.
***
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