As
UN Orders
$100M in Cuts,
Promised
Answers Not
Provided,
Private
Information?
By
Matthew
Russell Lee
UNITED
NATIONS,
January 19 --
What is
happening with
the UN's
budget?
On
the evening of
January 18
well placed UN
whistleblowers
told Inner
City Press
that the UN
has now
demanded $100
million in
cuts from its
departments,
in many cases
directly
impacting the
substantive
work of the
departments.
There is
little
transparency
of which
department are
being asked to
cut what.
For
weeks Inner
City Press has
asked, first
for Secretary
General Ban
Ki-moon's
response to
the end of what many
called the
most
dysfunctional
Budget
Committee
session ever,
then for an
answer to why the press
corps'
move-back to
the UN's
skyscraper has
been delayed
two months.
On
the first
question,
Inner City
Press was told
to wait for Ban's
"Town
Hall" meeting
with staff,
which despite
being
closed-door it
wrote about
here.
On
the latter
question, the
UN Department
of Public
Information
has
offered shifting
answers,
first that the
normally sized
construction
crew at the UN
has had to be
shifted to
damage from
Hurricane
Sandy
in the third
sub basement,
then that the
UN can't
afford the now
increased pay
rates of
construction
workers in New
York.
DPI,
which on
January 17
promised
written
answers to
other
questions
which
as of this
writing on
January 19
have yet to be
provided, has
grandly
said that this
is a
legitimate
story to
follow. But
follow how,
without
official UN
answers? While
in fairness
there are
trends going
the other way,
such as DPI's
new
"brown
bag" briefing
series,
some now refer
to a UN
Department of
PRIVATE
Information.
But still some
meetings
remain open. On
the
morning of
January 17
DPI's Maher
Nasser, the
addressee of a
New
York Civil
Liberties
Union letter
which drew a
purported
private
response from
another DPI
official who
refuses to
make public
the response,
sat before an
audience
of
non-governmental
organizations
in a North
Lawn
conference
room.
Nasser tried
gamely to
explain
eliminating
the
post of the
person who
liaised with
NGOs, moving
the NGOs'
office out
of the UN main
compound, and
not having had
a DPI-NGO
conference in
2012, or
apparently in
2013.
There was
significant
push back, and
there promises
to be more.
Again,
on
the evening of
January 18
well placed UN
whistleblowers
told Inner
City Press
that the UN
has now
demanded $100
million in
cuts from its
departments,
in many cases
to the
substantive
work of the
departments.
There is
little
transparency
of which
department are
being asked to
cut what.
But DPI's
answers on the
delay in the
move-back of
the press corp
must be seen
in this light.
We'll have
more on this:
watch this
site.
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