In
Corrupt UN of Guterres
Office of South South
Cooperation Chediek Spends
$164000 Only Solheim Fired
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS
GATE, November 25 – With UN
Secretary General Antonio
Guterres gone from New York
with location and costs to the
public undisclosed for four
days and counting having
praised the UN Office of South
South Cooperation so recently
exposed as a bribery vehicle
in the Ng Lap Seng - President
of the UN General Assembly
John Ashe corruption
prosecution, OSSC chief Jorge
Chediek is scheduled for
another press conference with
Inner City Press which reports
on his corruption still
banned. In fact, the trial in
the next UN bribery case, that
of China Energy Fund
Committee, begins the same
day. So the night before, this
exclusive update on OSSC and
Chediek: In the wake of Erik
Solheim’s forced resignation
from UNEP after revelations of
travel no worse than those of
Guterres himself, questions
remain over the travel of
Jorge Chediek, Director of the
UN Office for South-South
Cooperation who racked up over
$81,300 in travel in 2017.
Despite the previous
revelations, Mr. Chediek
continued his high traveling
ways, having spent in excess
of $82,500 on travel by
November of this year. In
total, his travels for the
last two years amount to
nearly $164,000 criss-crossing
over 30 countries, with over a
month left before the end of
the year. This list,
exclusively:
JORGE CHEDIEK, UN
Office for South-South
Cooperation
Benin $ 5,390.00 $ 509.04
Switzerland $ 2,450.00 $
1,272.00
Thailand $ 3,140.00 $ 975.53
Turkey - Kazakhstan $ 4,500.00
$ 1,091.24
Kenya $ 4,740.00 $ 1,210.72
China $ 5,270.00 $ 673.40
Brazil $ 5,950.00 $ 505.76
Argentina $ 3,520.00 $
1,230.00
China - India $ 9,045.10 $
1,420.90
Argentina $ 4,053.00 $
1,168.32
France $ 2,424.50 $ 1,313.68
Germany $ 2,315.00 $ 1,030.00
Brazil $ 2,672.10 $ 815.50
Turkey $ 2,722.00 $ 363.00
Bangladesh - Hong Kong $
7,800.00 $ 1,771.48
Hawaii $ 2,848.00 $ 337.80
Egypt - France $ 3,976.90 $
2,283.00
Brazil $ 2,747.60 $ 822.17
Argentina $ 5,053.70 $ 909.52
Portugal - Spain $ 3,832.01 $
1,698.16
Cuba $ 342.70 $ 848.94
South Africa $ 7,424.50 $
710.39
China $ 5,429.00 $ 1,307.21
France - Norway $ 1,912.71 $
1,603.60
Thailand $ 6,326.00 $ 1,262.83
Egypt $ 5,650.00 $ 983.92
India $ 3,882.21 $ 763.68
Iran - UAE $ 4,815.13 $
1,146.72
Switzerland - Italy $ 4,914.83
$ 1,311.96
Brazil $ 2,481.31
Poland 4,671.63
It is worth noting that
Solheim was the head of a UN
agency while Chediek has
managed to spend this sizeable
sum merely as head of an
Office. The public censure has
not slowed his ambitions to
campaign for a coveted ASG
post in the least; he
continues the campaigning
disguised as preparations for
the March 2019 BAPA+40
conference. Travel records
backed up by his Facebook
posts reveal that he is not
one to cave in to any
criticism on excessive
spending.
This is egregious
misappropriation of agency
funds in the context of
overall funding shortages at
the United Nations Developmet
Programme that allocated $3.5
million annually OSSC. As Mr.
Chediek continues to rack up
air miles, who in UNDP
approves travel for the second
most globetrotting UNDP
official? What percentage of
OSSC budget is dedicated to
travel? Why is this
information not publicly
available? What are the
development gains as a result
of these baseless travels?
Moreover, it again raises
questions over the
prudence of cash strapped
Argentina, now under austerity
measures, to be spending
millions on Mr. Chediek’s
BAPA+40 conference.
These issues will be
highlighted at the annual
UNOSSC Global Expo, slated for
the end of this week (November
28-30) in New York. This three
day conference will again
consist of events which for
the most part only nominally
contribute to development. In
reality, it is just another
self promoting, expensive,
photo opportunity event for
Mr. Chediek and his cronies,
with the endorsement of
Secretary General Guterres and
UNDP Administrator Steiner.
For transparency reasons, ICP
is requesting details on the
budget of the UNOSSC Global
Expo, including travel costs
and details of those sponsored
to attend this jamboree in New
York.
As recession
looms in Argentina, its
Central Bank raising its
interest rates substantially
in the past month and after
the country announced it was
turning to the IMF
for a bailout, the government
is set to spend millions of
borrowed dollars on a wasteful
UN conference on South-South
Cooperation slated for March
2019 in Buenos Aires, to spend
millions on an Office led by
director Jorge
Chediek whos aim OSSC
sources say is to use this
conference to advance to UN
Assistant Secretary General
level. His tenure at the
Office thus far has involved a
spate of self promotional
travel while signing off on
dubious Memoranda of
Understanding (MOUs) for
projects that are only
tangentially related to actual
South-South development.
The MoU signings are often
documented on the Facebook
pageof Mr. Chediek, where he
brags about the support from
Guterres, who has refused to
audit the next UN corruption
scandal involving Patrick Ho
the China Energy Fund
Committee and had Inner City
Press which reports on it
roughed up and banned from the
UN.
Its collaboration
with Yingke Group, started
initially when current UNOSSC
Deputy Direcor Grace Wang, a
Chinese national, worked at
BPPS. When she commenced her
role at UNOSSC, this
relationship traveled with
her. This Yingke Group -UNOSSC
collaboration is covered in a
30 May 2018 article entitled
UNOSSC delegation discusses
South-South collaboration with
Yingke Group where it claims
this collaboration "is
designed to be one pillar of
the South-South Cooperation
Poverty Eradication
Facility,aiming to utilize
tourism as an instrument for
poverty alleviation through
improving infrastructure,
generating local employment,
increasing local income, and
developing local capacities."
But what is behind these
buzzwords?
The large number
of Mo Us also attest to the
frequency of wasteful travelby
Mr. Chediek. While million of
Argentinians are subjected to
austerity, the Government of
President Macri has decided to
invest millions in the
ambitions of one man, Mr.
Chediek. In addition to the
Chinese nepotism, Mr. Chediek
seems to have his own
questionable connections.
Recently, OSSC sources
complain, he hired an
Argentinian national for a
senior peace-building post and
one whose brother is the
founder and executive director
of Brandling Latin America, a
London based PR firm with
royal connections through the
company's senior director Lady
Gabriella Windsor?
The Office
continues to operate in highly
questionable ways, giving rise
to these questions: 'This
Office of South South
Cooperation is nested under
UNDP, and provided with $25
million in core money from the
UNDP budget. This budget is
currently protected from any
change in UNDP's financial
situation. It should be noted
that the budgets of the other
UNDP-funded organizations, UN
Volunteers and UNCDF - which
had their strategic frameworks
approved by this Board, and
whose monitoring and
evaluation frameworks are
clear - are not protected.
So... I) When will the
Office's budget, monitoring
and evaluation and results be
reported to the [UNDP
Executive] Board, and will
this be for decision? 2) Will
the Office start producing an
annual report again, and when
will this be available to the
Board? 3) How is the Office
working with UNDP's evaluation
and audit offices? 4) Where
will the Office's results be
reported and collated? 5) How
does the Office comply with
UNDP's transparency
requirements? We also note the
Office's fundraising
activities, and the very
generous investments totaling
$150 million this year by the
Government of India.
We'll have more on Guterres
and this Office, in India and
beyond. Amid record
unemployment rates and long
soup kitchen queues is BAPA+40
really a priority item for the
Government of Argentina?
What is happening to the UN
under Guterres, and his
spokesman Dujarric who blocks
and bans the Press? Watch this
site.
***
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