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When UN Loses Money to Dictators, It Resists
Disclosure, Unlike Even Corporations
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
December 5, updated --
Following the
exposure of the UN's quiet currency
exchange losses to the governments of
Myanmar and Zimbabwe,
Inner City Press on December 5 asked a member of the UN's
Responsible Management Education group what the UN should do when it
faces or
discovers such losses. "Disclose," said John Fernandes of the
Alliance to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business. Gerard Van Schaik
of
Belgium's EFMD added that such disclosure should be to society at
large, and
not only to donors. Video here,
from Minute 36:52.
Minutes
later, Inner City Press asked the UN's humanitarian chief John Holmes
if he
agrees with and will implement these views of the UN's business
partners.
Holmes claimed that the UN had been "perfectly transparent" about its
losses in Myanmar. But his colleague Dan Baker, when Inner City Press
asked him
about the losses on July 10, said incorrectly that Myanmar's
"government
does not benefit." Video here
from Minute 46:20.
In fact,
Baker and the UN only admitted their losses to Myanmar's military
government
after Inner City Press continued asking about it, in light of a June 26 UN
internal memo which put the level of losses as high as 25%. Holmes on December 5 said that the UN
still
"has no systematic mechanism" to look for losses, but acknowledged
only one other country where this has happened, Zimbabwe. But before Inner City
Press last week asked about the UN's losses to Robert Mugabe, the
UN had
publicly disclosed nothing about those losses either.
Inner City
Press asked Holmes, if the UN in the future losses money to government
required
currency exchange, will it as recommended disclose the level of losses
in its
Consolidated Appeal documents or other fund-raising pitches. Video here,
from
Minute 36:50. Holmes answered, apparently without irony, "I'm sure it
will
come out one way or another." Apparently, only if the information leaks
to
the press, and even then, the UN's first instinct, like Baker's, is
usually to
deny it.
UN's Holmes watches Dan Baker,
"government does not benefit," accountability and reform not shown
Inner
City Press is most often skeptical of corporation which come to drape
themselves in the UN's blue flag -- on December 5, Inner City Press
asked about
the UN Global Compact membership and reporting of BHP Billiton, which
is the
subject of an undisclosed OECD Guidelines complaint for destruct act
mining in
Colombia. Video here
from Minute 20:07, and see update
below. But in this case, the UN is not even
living up to or follow the minimally-responsible advice of the business
school
executives it has invited to its corporate society responsibility
events. In
fact, the UN's willful non-disclosure of losses would, if done by a
publicly-trade business, trigger fines and imprison. But the UN is
(still)
benefiting from immunity, and impunity. This all needed to change.
Update: Less than 12 hours after
the Global Forum for Responsible Management Education press conference,
the Global Compact provided the following statement by its Director
Georg Kell about the BHP Billiton / OECD matter:
To answer
your question, here is a
bit of a perspective on the OECD story
(attributable to Georg Kell):
"The Global Compact is about
dialogue and learning. We try to foster change by providing
incentives and recognizing good
practices. Of course, no organization, large or small, can
claim to be
perfect, and there is always room for improvement. The main
thing to understand
is that the GC is not a compliance-based instrument. In
situations where individual incidents require
solution-finding, we very
much welcome the constructive efforts of the OECD.
"But, as this case may
illustrate, disclosure by companies on non-financial
performance is not necessarily
synonymous to implementation and does not cover all
incidents that occur in
a global organization. The Global Compact is aware of this,
and we are
undertaking efforts to make reports submitted under the
reporting (COP)
framework more tangible and meaningful."
We hope
to be able to report more about these efforts. Later on December 5,
Inner City
Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon if and how private
corporations should
deal with Myanmar's government at this stage. Despite having addressed
the Global
Forum for Responsible Management Education only hours earlier, Ban replied
that he cannot comment on specifics, adding that "whoever has
influence"
should try to convince Myanmar to improve its record. Click
here
for that.
Click here for Inner
City Press' November 25 debate on Somalia, politics
Click here for Inner City
Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
These
reports are
usually also available through Google
News and on Lexis-Nexis.
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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