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Darfur Mission Only 30% Staffed, Living in Containers Despite Lockheed's No-Bid Contracts

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

UNITED NATIONS, April 15 -- Despite paying Lockheed Martin $250 million for infrastructure in Sudan's Darfur region, the staff of the UN's mission there are living in metal containers, often far from restrooms. Despite the General Assembly passing a billion-dollar budget, the mission's independent contractors complain of not being paid. Only thirty percent of the approved posts have been filled. A contingent of UN peacekeepers from Nigeria had to stage a protest in order to get pay three months overdue.

            In the run-up to the Security Council's meeting on the UN's cooperation with regional organizations, particularly the African Union, recent findings in and about the hybrid UN - AU mission in Darfur paint a picture of mis-planning by the UN in New York, and funding problems with AU contingents like that from Nigeria.

   South Africa's permanent representative to the UN, Dumisani Kumalo, decried a situation in which the General Assembly has not allowed the UN to directly fund AU deployments such as that in Somalia. Assistance is given bilaterally, or even in a circular fashion like the United States' funding of Maryland-based Lockheed Martin for initial work in Darfur. This contract was handed off to the UN, to continue payments to Lockheed Martin's PAE subsidy on a no-bid basis, as was a smaller feeding contract. On that, the UN has responded:

"PAE managed 32 AU/AMIS camps providing catering services based on an agreement between the AU and various donors until 31 Dec 2007. The UN extended the AU-PAE catering contract for 90 days (1 Jan-31 Mar 2008) to allow a UN rations contract to be initiated. As of 1st April, there is a UNAMID contractor providing rations. The El Fasher PX facility opened in mid Dec 2007.  Catering services have been opened in Nyala and El Fasher on a pay-as-you-eat basis for non-entitled staff since there are very few commercial establishments."

            This last phrase is an understatement.  People are living in metal containers. In response to Inner City Press' questions about the transfer of these containers to Darfur from other UN missions and logistics base in Brindisi, Italy (UNLB), the UN has responded that it "has arranged two sealifts to move UNOE from Burundi (ONUB and BINUB) to Sudan, between Sept and Oct 2007. There have been two other sealifts between UNLB and Sudan, between August 2007 and March 2008."

            The efficiencies and costs of a "sealift" from Burundi to Darfur will be explored in future columns.

UNAMID and container: sealift from Burundi not shown

   Despite the push for Lockheed Martin as the UN contractor coming from the United States, sources just back from Darfur describe the visit of an "efficiency - expert American" who implemented changes to make it more difficult and expensive for staff in Darfur to take leave, if only to Khartoum.

   Previous UNMIS personnel in South Sudan describe an informal process in which a staffer's daylong trip to Khartoum would be considered a day of work, to make the break meaningful. Some consider this wasteful. But in response to Inner City Press' question, "what is the status of filling the international staff posts in UNAMID?" the UN has answered that "as of 4 April, around 30% of all international civilian posts had been filled." While DPKO's recent responsiveness to questions is appreciatd, there are other questions pending -- this story is to be continued.

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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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