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UNDP Advisor Serves Lobbyist for
Nigeria, No Comment on Niger Driver Missing
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
February 11 -- Can a UN official
work at the same time on the advisory board of a law firm lobbying for
sitting
governments from Nigeria and Liberia?
This appears to be the case of the UN Development
Program's Mr. Raja
Kaul, described as a "chief technical advisor" for a UNDP/Regional
Bureau for Africa project called "Regional Project for Capacity
Development for Negotiating and Regulating Investment Contracts." Last
week, Mr.
Kaul showed up in a press release that Mr. Kaul has
been appointed to an
"advisory board" for a Washington DC-based lobbying firm which is a
registered foreign agent for the governments of Liberia and Nigeria,
KRL
International.
Paragraph
41 of the document "Standards
of conduct for the international civil service" , which
applies to UNDP, states that it is
"improper for international civil servants to engage, without prior
authorization, in any outside activity, whether remunerated or not,
that
interferes with that obligation or is incompatible with their status or
conflicts with the interests of the organization.
On February
9, Inner City Press posed to UNDP's chief spokesman a series of simple
questions, including "how is Raja Kaul's service on the advisory
board of a law firm lobbying for Liberia (and Nigeria) consistent with
his UNDP role? Who approved this? Will it be discontinued?"
Two days
later, there has been no answer.
UNDP's Melkert, center, answers on conflicts,
Niger and Solomon Islands not shown
Likewise, no
answer to the other questions
posed, including
--"please respond to the
critique
of UNDP Solomon Islands that
"the project fund (issued by
UNDP) was diverted under approval of the Ministry's Director, the
Permanent
Secretary, the Minister and probably UNDP to purchase office furniture
and to
facilitate a provincial tour undertaken by the Director and his team."
--while Messrs. Fowler and Guay
are reportedly on a video released to Canada, their UNDP driver Soumana
Moukaila is not. Has UNDP received any information about Soumana
Moukaila? Why
didn't they have security that day in December? Did the Designated
Security
Officer approve the trip without security?"
UNDP, which
helped develop the Canadian-owned gold mine that Fowler was visiting on
the day
he was abducted, has not answered these or other questions. This is how
it has
been, under Kemal Dervis and the internal candidate to replace him, Ad
Melkert.
Would things be better under Helen Clark, UNICEF's Hilde Johnson or the
other
candidates? It would hardly get worse... Watch this site.
Click here for Inner City Press' Jan.
16, 2009 debate about Gaza
Click here for Inner City Press'
review-of-2008 UN Top Ten debate
Click here for Inner
City Press' December 24 debate on UN budget, Niger
Click here from Inner City Press'
December 12 debate on UN double standards
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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