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On Currency Exchange Losses, UN Starts Cover-Up in Myanmar
and Beyond
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
August 14 -- Despite an internal UN
memo admitted a "serious 20% loss" of aid money in currency
exchanges
required by Myanmar's government which led to an admission of
$10 million in
losses, on Thursday the UN cut its losses to $1.5 million, then
refused to explain.
The UN Development Program has for weeks refused to disclose how much
money it
has converted in Myanmar, nor in which other of the 160 countries it
does
business in its loses money in government-required conversions. The
Office for
the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, whose director John Holmes initially
took the lead in admitting the losses, has similarly declined to
provide
information about any other countries, despite Holmes' July 28
commitment to do
so. As is too frequent in the UN, exposure of a problem has been
followed not
by reform but by cover-up and stonewalling.
In fact,
despite a clear written and video
record, the UN now claims that the problem
wasn't exposed at all, but rather was "first
raised" by John Holmes
on July 24. But Inner City Press asked Holmes about the losses on July
9, 10
and 11, just as it had asked UNDP about the losses as far back as June
26. In
minutes
of a conference call that day, which whistleblowers showed to Inner
City Press, a "serious loss of 20%" was admitted to. Inner City
Press
subsequently quoted from and then published the minutes.
On August 14,
after reading out a statement that losses were "only" 4.5%, UN
Associate Spokesperson Farhan Haq refused to answer Inner City Press'
question
about how the
20% loss admitted in the internal memorandum had been changed,
without explanation, in this new public figure. "Internal conference
calls
are internal discussions," Haq said. When Inner City Press asked that
someone come to a press conference to answer questions about the new
numbers,
Haq said he's check "if Holmes is interested in talking," but that
Holmes
is not available now. Video here,
from Minute 12:11.
UN's Ban Ki-moon with Than Shwe, extent of
currency losses in Myanmar and beyond not shown
Inner City
Press sent written questions to Holmes' office and to Haq, stating that
on the
record answers were being sought on deadline:
"of how the 20% loss referred to
both in
the Teleconference minutes and elsewhere was changed to a 4.5% loss,
and by
whom. I am told, by a participant in the estimate-reduction exercise,
that UNDP
took the lead; I would like a confirmation or denial of that. I have asked UNDP the following, and hereby
ask OCHA (and spending under OCHA's control), on deadline
how much money has OCHA / the UN
converted through Foreign Exchange Certificates in Myanmar in the past
one,
five and ten years? At what rates? With what losses? If any, how were
these
disclosed? And, please any and all other
countries in which OCHA / the UN has faced currency exchange losses of
over 5%,
and what you have done and, separately, will do about it? And when will
Mr
Holmes (and separately Mr. Baker, in light of his July 10 statements)
hold press conference(s) at UN HQ on these
topics?" I trust you remember that
Mr. Holmes said he saw no reason not to make public a list of countries
in
which OCHA / the UN suffers currency exchange losses.
So, please do.
Eight
hours later, no answer of any kind had been received. UNDP, as noted, has had
the questions before it since June 26, multiply reiterates since
then. On
August 14, rather than providing the numbers about how much money UNDP
has
converted in Myanmar, UNDP's Spokesman Stephane Dujarric wrote:
On
Myanmar, you received extensive
answers on the currency exchange question at the noon briefing. With
regards to
our programme in Myanmar, UNDP does not have a regular country
programme in
Myanmar. Since 1993, all assistance from UNDP to Myanmar has been
governed by a
restrictive mandate from UNDP's Executive Board, which stipulates that
assistance must be focused at the grass-roots level, particularly in
the areas
of primary health care, environment, HIV/AIDS, training and education
and food
security.
Extensive controls are in place to ensure compliance with the UNDP
Executive Board
mandate in Myanmar and the Executive Board receives regular reports.
Independent assessments have all found that the programme is in full
compliance
with the Executive Board mandate: i.e., that it is effective in
addressing the
needs of the poor and vulnerable in rural areas of Myanmar, and that
all
projects operate independently of the government. The full 2005-2006
assessment, including the budget, is available online on the Executive
Board
website www.undp.org/execbrd/adv2006-second.htm .
But the
questions, asked of Mr. Dujarric and in his absence of UNDP's Christina
Lonigro
and, in great detail, Stanislav Saling, included how much money was
been in
UNDP's account at the Myanmar Foreign Exchange Bank, how much was
converted and
at what loss. Also, Dujarric entirely ignores the wider question posed
to him
and to
UNDP Administrator Kemal Dervis, to disclose "any and all
other countries in which UNDP has faced currency exchange losses of
over 5%, and what
you have done and, separately, will do about it?"
This
is a question
that, as to OCHA, John Holmes said on July 28 there was no reason he
would not
answer. But despite repeated reminders, the question has not been
answered by
him and OCHA, nor UNDP, nor the Department of Peacekeeping Operations,
to which Ban Ki-moon's Spokesperson passed the buck (DPKO in turn has
said it has
asked the UN Controllers Office, just as it passes from the UK's Warran
Sach to
a new Controller from Japan). DPKO has promised an answer, and we'll
wait for it and publish it on this site.
Inner
City Press has
been contacted by other whistleblowers concerned with the UN system's
currency
losses. But is the only way to get any change to shame UN officials and
point
out their mis-statements? We'll see.
Watch
this
site. And this (on
South Ossetia), and
this --
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