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UN GATE, Aug 5 – The Office for South-South Cooperation (OSSC) is well known for being the most corrupt office in UNDP, with its notorious history spanning nearly two decades. In 2015, a colossal bribery scandal led the FBI to the arrest and subsequent prosecution of Chinese billionaire Ng Lap Seng and former President of the UN General Assembly John Ashe.

Since then Patrick Ho's CEFC China Energy replaced Ng, with a direct connection to Secretary General Antonio Guterres who had the Press roughed up and banned to try to hide it.

Now Inner City Press publishes this exclusive, with audio:  In a recent staff meeting, the disgraced OSSC Director Jorge Chediek announced his imminent departure from OSSC. This comes after he bragged about being cleared of all wrongdoing following a two-year investigation for fraud, waste, mismanagement, abuse and harassment undertaken by the UNDP Office for Audit and Investigation (OAI) between 2018 and 2020. True to form, Mr. Chediek condemned whistleblowers for reporting wrongdoing to UNDP authorities,  “the office has been under a cloud, particularly because some of the disloyal colleagues that we have leaked information in a very biased way with false documentation”.      It’s worth noting that Mr. Chediek’s departure should not be attributed to any robust internal oversight mechanisms. On the contrary, UNDP management has time and again demonstrated its tendency to side with crooked (white) officials.

In fact, it is only thanks to Inner City Press' continuous exposés of the scandalous abuse of taxpayers’ money by UNDP officials that forced the hand of top brass. Over the past few years, Inner City Press has exposed several substantiated cases of waste, abuse and harassment committed by Mr. Chediek  and his office.

 In 2018, when OAI launched the large-scale investigation into OSSC, Mr. Chediek blamed the ICP exposé of his fraudulent acts for triggering the investigation: “There are some publications that have been made in some media, most of the information that were published there are non-issues because they are official activities like my travels”, “there are other things that are published that are wrong, so that’s what triggered this investigation.”  Audio 1 here   

Mr. Chediek continues to deny culpability, but his claims of innocence are preposterous in the face of overwhelming evidence. His dismissal and deflection of legitimate concerns about waste, abuse of authority, fraud, and harassment as “non-issues” is par for the course in the UN system. A quick perusal of his social media shows a manager whose entire tenure at OSSC has been characterized by self-promoting acts like shaking hands with VIPs and photo ops. Beyond that, he is well known for his lack of substance and has little to show for the relatively obscene budget OSSC has been enjoying thus far. Mr. Chediek has allegedly been given a “gentleman’s deal”, which means he is being forced out quietly while he gets to keep his pension, thereby ensuring that UNDP does not have to come clean on another scandal involving OSSC, merely two years after the Macau Ng Lap Seng fiasco. 

   Corruption often goes hand in hand with the abusive treatment of staff, especially when they are not in agreement with the unethical actions of the directorate and its minions. At OSSC, staff are regularly subjected to verbal abuse, harassment, intimidation, and threats, comprising an excessively toxic environment. Mr. Chediek and his compatriot Ines Tofalo, are widely known for their infractions, running a tight ship marked by aggressive blackmailing and intimidation of staff into submission. ICP is in possession of very concerning evidence obtained during the two-year OAI investigation into OSSC from 2018 to 2020, in which Mr. Chediek was making blatant threats to intimidate and silence whistleblowers.     “Some serious things happened, and the investigation […], many people say I’m not doing the right things, that's not fair and they’re lies”, “I received feedback from delegation about the situation in the office, and if it happens again that the delegation comes and complains, I’m putting clear rules, they are very clear and very nice rules because I don’t want [..] lawyers. As a colleague, as a friend, somebody who has a successful career in the UN, my advice to you, I feel that there’s something that you might rethink again. If you don’t do that, I terminate your contract, if you don’t fulfill this condition of being collegial. So that is the situation, which is normal rules, not something extraordinary.” Audio 2 here  

 “I really regret that you feel the need to go […], but my instruction, mashallah, align and recognize my need for the medium term, my instruction is be collegial about it. If it’s not proceeding that way, I’ll keep an eye on it. That’s my instruction, I cannot repair it forever. We are discussing it as we are talking about abstract things. It’s your work, it’s your life, don’t lose sight of that. It’s not a choice, so please work in that direction and supporting each other, not bitching each other or criticizing each other.” Audio 3 here    Mr. Chediek’s attempts to downplay and deflect blame is further testament to his constant disregard for the very UN principles he pontificates about. Behind closed doors he claimed that whistleblower intimidation is just “abstract talk” and “normal rule”. How did Mr. Chediek learn about the identities of the whistleblowers? As the head of OAI, the office in charge of ensuring accountability, enforcing justice, and protecting those who come forward in good faith to report wrongdoing, Mr. Osttveiten compromised his own office and violated basic principles of an investigatory due process, and served the whistleblowers to Mr. Chediek on a silver platter.    After Inner City Press' latest July 15 article on the UNDP cover-up of the Macau related-audit into OSSC and the recent UNDP’s staged exoneration of Mr. Chediek and Ms. Tofalo following the two-year investigation, ICP has received a wave of information from numerous sources, expressing their outrage over the gross injustice and complete failure of UNDP’s internal accountability mechanisms.    

Among other “non issues'' is the OSSC decade-long bribery of the G77, which was initially discovered in the 2016 audit. Not only was it not rectified after the audit, Mr. Chediek further institutionalized this corruption. This cynical relationship between the G77 and OSSC, motivated by Mr. Chediek’s political agenda of acquiring the UN ASG position, saw UNDP via OSSC channeling large sums of money to the G77, which were earmarked by Member States for activities that would promote sustainable development in developing countries. Unbeknownst to the UNDP donors themselves, Mr. Chediek has diverted this money to create a faux “development project”, which since 2017 to date functioned with the sole purpose of paying the excessive $500,000 tax-exempt annual salary of one person - the G77 Executive Secretary Mourad Ahmia. Mr. Chediek also created fake UNDP positions and awarded contracts to pay salaries of individuals working at the Permanent Missions of Ecuador and Egypt, when these countries served as Chair of the G77. For example, the secretary of the Permanent Representative of the Mission of Egypt and Chair of the G77 was also a UNDP employee thanks to OSSC’s Mr. Chediek. Mr. Chediek further colluded with Mourad Wahba, UNDP Associate Administrator and an Egyptian national, to accept a $100,000 contribution from Mr. Wahba’s office to OSSC, after which Mr. Chediek purchased numerous pieces of office equipment and delivered them to the Permanent Mission of Egypt in 2018.    The 2016 audit found “weaknesses within travel management” and made recommendations on financial management of resources at OSSC. The audit stated “the deficiencies and weaknesses identified could lead to financial losses for OSSC and exposure to reputational risks.” After the audit, this wasteful practice persisted and worsened, as Mr. Chediek turned OSSC into a social club and used UNDP allocated resources as personal funds to finance his travels and exchange favors with his friends, including paying business-class air tickets for an middle level Indian government official, in violation of UNDP policy, or covering personal travel of fellow Argentinians in the Office.     Mr. Chediek is noted to be one of the most traveled UN officials whose excessive and wasteful travels are evident through his habit of repeating the same activity multiple times . He once travelled to Bangkok to join the government of Thailand in a photo op to launch Thailand South-South in Action report. However, this same report had already been launched twice on two previous occasions in New York and Geneva. During this trip, he instructed staff to rent limousine cars for him to do sightseeing and visit the Grand Palace. This entire trip was essentially for tourism purposes but its costs were charged to the office.    Mr. Chediek continuously pays for activities that have nothing to do with the core mandate of the office, instead turning OSSC into a channel for funneling money to buy political favors. After receiving UNDP allocated resources, OSSC has become the donor to other institutions with which Mr. Chediek had close ties to. Among various dealings, UNDP resources have been grossly mismanaged through dubious partnerships such as:    -       $278,000 to pay for numerous government officials to take training courses at the UN System Staff College.  -       $100,000 to Unitaid for a “joint publication on South-South Cooperation” and “events”, which turned out to pay over $80,000 for salary and travelling costs.  -       $30,000 to Brazil Africa Institute for organizing the Brazil Africa Forum, which bought Mr. Chediek a panelist place on the podium. Unitaid was the co-sponsor of this forum, which in fact was financed through the (above) $100,000 contribution from OSSC. Therefore, OSSC essentially made duplicate contributions to this forum.  -       $50,000 to the Research and Information System for Developing Countries, a New Delhi-based research institute fully financed by the government of India and whose Director is the Indian government official, for whom Mr. Chediek paid the business-class airfare.    The 2016 audit also identified “weaknesses in recruitment” and “inadequate organizational structure and personnel arrangements” related to staffing, contractual arrangement, and distribution of functions at OSSC. In particular, OSSC operates under UNDP regulations, rules and procedures, however, there has been a complete lack of oversight and scrutiny from UNDP over OSSC operations. After the audit, Ms. Tofalo, upon her promotion to the Chief of the newly created Programme Support Unit, continued to carry out a string of corrupt activities, including countless recruitment and procurement fraud, falsifying documents and awarding contracts to those with a close relationship or bringing mutual benefit for Mr. Chediek and herself. It was all carefully orchestrated with the backstopping of an admin staff with no expertise in HR or procurement but who was solely responsible for administering all recruitment and procurement at OSSC under Ms. Tofalo’s supervision. ICP has evidence of how recruitment and procurement have been consistently and systematically manipulated at OSSC by Ms. Tofalo and the admin staff, where the outcome was always determined before the process began, including the fraudulent promotion of Ms. Tofalo herself.    Aside from overseeing recruitment and procurement, as well as managing finances and programmatic resources at OSSC, Ms. Tofalo also assumes the management of three trust funds – the PGTF established by the G77, the India Brazil South Africa Fund, and the Indian-UN Development Partnership Fund. Due to India’s ostensibly large donations to OSSC, Mr. Chediek and Ms. Tofalo have pushed for the hiring of numerous individuals of Indian national/descent, with one shocking example of 6 Indians hired in a short span of 5 months, all through fraudulent and bogus processes in violation of UNDP policy. But of course, this was a “non-issue” as long as it helped Mr. Chediek show goodwill to the government of India, while these individuals’ salaries were actually financed by UNDP allocated resources. This essentially means Member States have been subsidizing the foreign policy of one country and the political agenda of one person, Mr. Chediek.    As it turns out, these funds do not have an efficient cost-recovery mechanism due to the below-standard management fee, which Mr. Chediek used his position to negotiate for India and against UNDP. Despite having operated at a loss for years, Mr. Chediek publicly expressed his willingness to lower this management fee even more. And there’s not a stronger and louder voice advocating for Mr. Chediek’s political agenda than that of Ms. Tofalo: “Preferential GMS rate for south-south cooperation in some ways cripples us in some way makes us look sexy, I discussed this with India, they are aware and they want this, for us to charge just 1%, they’re tough negotiator, they got a good deal. For us to have the pass-through functionalities would be an internal battle, for our funds it would be enormously enabling. I will still push for it until I get it. I want this fund to have pass-through capacity but at this point pass-through is monopolized by MPTF [UNDP Multi-Partner Trust Fund Office], they say it’s kind of a conflict of interest. That’s a discussion that Jorge needs to have, I think he’s waiting for the right political moment. Jorge even plays with this thing, if he calls Achim Steiner, you have it in one day, so does Indian want to do it, or they don’t care enough they prefer not to look cheap.” Audio 4 here    It seems that when Mr. Chediek whistles, UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner comes running, which explains why UNDP Associate Administrator Mr. Wahba and OAI Director Mr. Osttveiten were compelled to give Mr. Chediek a pass. Mr. Wahba and Mr. Osttveiten were active participants and accomplices in Mr. Chediek’s ring of corruption. By exonerating him they were effectively exonerating themselves, in blatant conflict of interest. While other UNDP officials of African descent working at similar levels of Mr. Chediek are readily suspended or fired, Mr. Chediek and Ms. Tofalo have enjoyed freedom for two years to continue their corrupt acts while under investigation, knowing UNDP management will exonerate them simply for being white.    ICP received confirmation from a UNDP source that Mr. Chediek was indeed asked to “voluntarily” leave OSSC in September, a peace-offering gesture by UNDP to buy Mr. Chediek’s silence in exchange for the cover-up of his corruption as well as a full pension package. Moreover, UNDP will also keep Mr. Chediek on its payroll beyond September, allowing him to accumulate contract time until it reaches 30 years so that Mr. Chediek could enjoy the maximum UN pension benefits.     UNDP management has also ordered a new audit by OAI in July 2020 into OSSC to cleanse the mess Mr. Chediek left behind. But what can another faux audit achieve after five years of endless audits and investigations into the unreformable OSSC that always yielded the same bogus results all cooked up by the corrupt OAI Director Mr. Osttveiten? With one foot out the door, Mr. Chediek certainly has some choice words for his soon-to-be-former friend Mr. Osttveiten, “audit is a very funny exercise because every once in a while, they say that they want to make a constructive exercise to make positive suggestions on how to move things, but the real nature of an audit is to find problems.” Who else would be in a better position to testify to how “funny” an OAI audit is than Mr. Chediek, a seasoned expert in manipulating and falsifying audit results. Audio 5 here    To be a winner, Mr. Chediek now has to make losers out of those he did “business” with. A liar always has to find new ways to lie. And the art of telling lies has never reached the heights that we now see at UNDP. To top it all, ICP has an explosive voice audio of Mr. Chediek’s going into a rant in his office, taking off his mask and revealing what he really thinks about the UN and those he once called friends. Audio 6 here     “I don’t maneuver, but people here are so fucking sick that they think that everybody is like that, that I maneuvered. You know what I say to that ‘fuck you liar’, I don’t maneuver with anybody, I don’t maneuver I don’t play games I don’t do that shit, and I know everybody in this rotten city that have lost sight of what the UN really is. Think that, fucking you. That is not the case, it’s a lie, and if you think that, you’re fucking wrong, if you have propagated lie and if you don’t say ‘no you are wrong’ you are not doing the right thing”, “my job to do good, and I’m very proud that I put my spirit in the same way that I always have”, “I don’t care about the ASG. That issue poisoned this office so I don’t want people to be confused that I’m doing that for my own personal gain, understand that. I earned all my promotions starting from P2 and I got to D2 without a single gram of support from anybody in this system. I did it because I earned this, total openness. I won’t fill this job, I already offered to the Secretary General, to the Deputy Secretary General, to the Administrator of UNDP and to the countries, you give this post to whomever, I don’t care and I don’t want the ASG as I said yesterday because I’m fucking tired of this, of people losing sight of what we are here for, it’s all the things that you hear and the shit, they’re not true, and if you don’t believe me, get out of here.”    Meanwhile, UNDP continues to betray the trust of its Member States and funders. UNDP management is not only allowing the corrupt, incompetent and wasteful Mr. Chediek to retire without consequence, but is also ensuring that Member States will assume the costs of his expensive retirement for many years to come. What will UNDP’s Member States do to protect their tax-payers’ money given to UNDP in the good faith that it will reach the poor and underprivileged, and not to finance the lavish lifestyle and advance the political ambition of corrupt officials like Mr. Chediek? 

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