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UN's Borg-Olivier, Warned for Pro-Kosovo
Quotes, Is Paid Through UNDP to Advise Kosovo
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED
NATIONS, September 3 -- In
Kosovo, the just-retired chief legal
officer of the UN Mission, Alexander
Borg-Olivier, is now being paid through the UN Development Program
to be an
advisor to the Kosovo government. This despite the UN's admission
Wednesday to
Inner City Press that Borg-Olivier was previously warned by UNMIK for
publicly
bragging about his position in favor of Kosovo independence. His new
position
not only directly calls into question the impartiality or so-called
status
neutrality of the UN in Kosovo, it also appears to violate applicable
UN
post-employment rules.
"Mr. Borg-Olivier earlier this year gave an
interview to the
Times of Malta which was considered to be inappropriate by UNMIK and
the
previous SRSG who brought the interview to his attention and gave him
an oral
warning," a written response provided Wednesday to
Inner City
Press by the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary-General
acknowledged.
It went on to say that "on 30 June Mr. Borg-Olivier retired
from
the UN and it is our understanding that he is currently assisting the
Kosovo
government on legal matters. He is no longer employed by the UN so
there is no conflict
of interest."
But the UN Secretary General's Bulletin on
"post employment restrictions" provides
2.2
For a period of two years following separation from service, former
staff members
who have participated in the procurement process for the Organization
before
separation from service are prohibited from knowingly communicating
with, or
appearing before, any staff member or unit of the Organization on
behalf of any
third party on any particular matters that were under their official
responsibility relating to the procurement process during the last
three years
of their service with the Organization.
As UNMIK's chief legal official, Borg Olivier
participated in the
procurement process. Under his watch, funds from the privatization of
state-owned enterprises were transferred to the Kosovo government. Now, the UN tells Inner City Press, "UNMIK
is doing its outmost to secure the Kosovo Trust Agency funds
until all outstanding issues including claims can be dealt
with."
Borg-Olivier, at right, as UNMIK OIC,
before going to work for Kosovo (DPI/UNMIK)
It seems clear that Borg Olivier was preparing to go
work for and with
the Kosovo government while still in the employ of UNMIK. This would
violate
Rule 2.3, which provides
2.3
While in service, staff members participating in the procurement
process shall
refrain from soliciting or accepting, directly or indirectly, any
promise or
offer of future employment from any contractor or vendor of goods or
services,
regardless of location, which conducts business with the Organization
or seeks
to do so and with whom such staff members have been personally involved
in the
procurement process during the previous three years of service with the
Organization. Should a staff member participating in the procurement
process
receive a promise or offer, the staff member shall immediately report
the
incident to the head of office and to the Under-Secretary-General for
Internal
Oversight Services and recuse himself or herself from any further
dealing with
such contractor or vendor until instructed to do so by the head of
office.
Later on Wednesday, the plot further thickened, when
UNDP Spokesman
Stephane Dujarric chimed in that
"Mr.
Borg-Olivier has been contracted as a short-term consultant on an
European Commission
funded project called 'Capacity Building for European Integration.'
UNDP administers
this EC project , called 'Capacity Building for European Integration'
project,
which aims to provide capacity building services to the government of
Kosovo. The project is designed to be
'demand driven,'
to provide services as requested by the government. It was the
government who
requested Borg-Olivier's services. The request was then approved by the
EC as
the EC approves or vetoes all funding decisions. The
decision to hire Mr. Borg-Oliver was
taken by the EC. UNDP's role was [to] process the paper work according
to the
decisions of the host government and the donor, the EC."
Inner City Press has asked UNDP how much it got or
gets paid to
"process the paper work" for the EC to pay Kosovo's chosen
consultant. Why, one wonders, is UNDP always in the middleman role? But more fundamentally, do Serbia and, for
example, Russia know that the UN, which claims to be status neutral, is
paying
consultants to the Kosovo government? And unrelatedly, since UN system
retirees
are limited to making or taking above $22,000 annual from the UN, how
much is
Borg-Olivier getting paid? We will
continue to pursue this, since the UN at least initially did not.
Footnote:
On Tuesday Inner City
Press asked the UN Spokesperson to confirm its weekend report that
David
Harland is the new Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary
General in
Kosovo; the response was " I don’t
have anything on that
today." Well on Wednesday in Pristina, the UN spokesperson there
Alexander
Ivanko said that "Mr. Harland who is appointed Principal Deputy to the
SRSG on an acting bas[i]s will arrive tomorrow." So why not announce it
at
UN Headquarters? Now, the Office of the Spokesperson for the Secretary
General
is not even holding a briefing or Q&A session on Thursday. And so
it goes
at the UN.
Watch
this
site. And this (on
South Ossetia),
this, on
Russia-Georgia,
and
this --
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