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UN Peacekeeping Gives CISCO Access to Its Cairo Meetings, Roots of No-Bid Contracting

UNITED NATIONS, May 19 -- A U.S.-based computer company with, already, $90 million in UN business was allowed exclusive access to a recent Peacekeeping Information Technology conference in Egypt, rather than being referred for performance review or investigation, it has emerged.

            In what some attendees call a junket, UN peacekeeping's Department of Field Support earlier this month held a conference about information technology in Cairo, Egypt. Sources told Inner City Press they were surprised and troubled at the high-profile presence including as a provider of entertainment at the intra-UN meeting of  the large contractor, CISCO, via its global account manager to the U.N., David Andemicael. Such corporate access would not be allowed, at least under the rules, by the UN's Procurement Division. So why does UN Peacekeeping -- or its Department of Field Support -- allow it?

            Inner City Press sent this question to DFS's information technology chief Rudy Sanchez as well as to the new head of DFS, Susana Malcorra. The first day passed without response. But on May 20, DFS spokesman Nick Birnback provided a lengthy response:

"Hi Matthew, Ms. Malcorra asked me to get back to you on your queries of yesterday. The United Nations Secretariat has a direct contractual agreement with CISCO Systems. This agreement was developed in compliance with United Nations Financial and Procurement rules and regulations and has been in place since February 2004. The Secretariat has standardized the use of CISCO products and technology for Network equipment used in field mission’s Local Area Networks (LANs) and the DFS Wide Area Network (WAN). Field mission Information and Communications Technology (ICT) personnel indicated that one of the most pressing technical issues was network performance related to the transmission of voice, video and data over mission LANs and the WAN, and the optimization of CISCO technologies currently in use.

CISCO representatives were therefore invited to the conference to provide technical briefings to the UN participants on the utilization of CISCO technologies that would mitigate performance degradation associated with the high-latency, low-bandwidth infrastructure in use in field operations. CISCO engineers also provided technical briefings on how their equipment could best be leveraged in support of field ICT operations. CISCO representatives only participated only in this phase of the conference.

While there were no other non-UN participants in attendance this year, major UN contractors/technical service providers have participated on an issue-specific basis in previous conferences. "

            This answer, while appreciated, raises more questions. Sources tell Inner City Press that CISCO's "network performance," now proffered as the rationale for its exclusive access to decision-makers, is a performance issue, which should have been referred to the Procurement Division. What CISCO provides, they say, is often incompatible with UN Peacekeeping missions.

UN and Cisco's John Chambers and wine: Cairo access and paryting not shown

            How long has CISCO worked for the UN? Since at least 1992, Inner City Press is told, beginning with routers costing (then) $30,000. But CISCO was soon made the UN de facto standard, so that other contractors could not compete. It has been, in essence, no-bid ever since, culminating in being invited to UN Peacekeeping's own information technology conference. It is credible that CISCO will be subjected to legitimate competition for UN contracts going forward? What do the powers that be at the UN have to say about this?

Footnotes: it's now said that the acting chief of the Procurement Division, Paul Buades, may not in fact get the post, that "an Australian from UNOPS" is now in line, and even Buades' Ukrainian deputy is on the rocks, his partying picture circulating through capitals of the countries for but not in which the UN buys millions of dollars of goods.

Meanwhile, the UN has erroneously jumped the gun on promising Spain that its Peacekeeping Information Technology unit will be in Valencia -- without Budget Committee approval of any kind. Hopefully that Committee will look into Valencia, and also into this. We'll see.

 Finally, insiders describe a trend in which information technology staffers of UN Peacekeeping now Department of Field Suppport leaves and go to work with the companies which contract with the UN. Where are the safeguards? Partying with CISCO...

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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

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