UN
Guterres To
Travel To See
Portugal Play
Morocco at
World Cup,
Refuses Qs on
Price Tags
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Video
UNITED NATIONS,
June 2 –
Antonio Guterres has held the
position of UN Secretary
General for seventeen months,
amid few accomplished reforms
or political conflicts solved,
and ongoing censorship / restriction
of the Press. He will,
however, be in Moscow to watch
his team, Portugal, play
against Morocco on June 20. He
said this on June 2 and then
took some softball questions.
Video here.
This while he refuses Press
questions on what's called his
reform of the UN development
system.
Inner City Press
on May 30 sought to ask
Guterres' spokesman Stephane
Dujarric a question in
advance. But Dujarric, who
evicted Inner City Press from
the UN Press Briefing Room as
it pursued the still unresolved
story of UN bribery and keeps
it restricted, ran off. Video
here.
So here is the question: why
even for this reform has
Guterres not prepared the UN's
usual “Program Budget
Implication” statement? How
much will the reform cost? On
May 31, Inner City Press asked
Guterres' spokesman Stephane
Dujarric who offered an
evasive answer and then ran
off the podium. From the UN's
sanitized transcript:
Inner City Press: I wanted to
ask you about the development
system reform. In
talking to some people on the
Fifth Committee, they said
that it's strange that there's
no Program Budget Implication,
PBI, filed in connection with
this pretty major
proposal. Like, even for
the envoy on Myanmar, there
had to be a PBI. How can
it be something this big
doesn't have a price tag?
Spokesman: Well, I mean,
I think everything was
negotiated with the Fifth
Committee, and I think they
got all the documents they
needed." And then he ran off.
So Inner City Press went and
asked the question to
Guterres, repeatedly, who
ignored the audible question
(but appeared to give a small
wave). Video here.
This while Guterres
accompanied by Dujarric and
Alison Smale wined
and dined no-question
correspondents with pan seered
corvina
and restricting Inner City
Press which alone asks about
these budget issues, and
corruption. Today's UN is
corrupt - and a censor.
On June 1, Inner
City Press asked Guterres'
deputy spokesman Farhan Haq,
UN transcript here:
Inner City Press: yesterday in
the… in the meeting to… on
the… on the development system
reform, there was a sort of
formal statement of the
Secretariat that said, quote,
"The Secretariat is not in a
position to provide a detailed
statement of programme budget
implications (PBI) prior to
the finalization of the
implementation plan." So
I wanted to ask what I was
trying to ask Stéphane
yesterday. What is the…
usually, I mean, at least in
my experience, usually the PBI
is done before the vote.
Maybe this is… I'm sure States
agreed to this, but what is
the plan for the
Secretariat? What's the
time frame to actually say how
much it's going to cost?
Deputy Spokesman: What's
happening now — we're very
appreciative of the adoption
of the resolution yesterday by
the Member States. We
had informed the Member States
in a note of our… of the
process that we're going
through, and what we're going
to do now is that we are
engaging… as of now, we're
engaging with the Fifth
Committee to provide more
information, and we'll do this
so that, as the
Secretary-General made clear,
we can hit the ground running
on 1 January 2019.
Inner City Press: So
that's in this May section, in
this… in this current session,
that… that this information is
going to be provided, the PBI?
Deputy Spokesman: Like I
said, we have started, as of
this past day, we're starting
our dialogue with the Fifth
Committee on this." But the
resolution says during THIS
General Assembly - and the
final Budget Committee session
of this GA ends soon...
The
reform, such as it is, is to
move authority for the UN's
resident coordinator system
from the UN Development
Program over to Guterres'
deputy secretary general Amina
J. Mohammed. Guterres had
wanted to get regular assessed
budget funding for this, but
he lost in that attempt. An
undefined “hybrid” funding
system is yet to be specified,
despite a rubber stamp vote
being calle on the reform on
May 31. How will it be paid
for? It is undisclosed, just
like Guterres' visit to his
home in Portugal on May 28 was
undisclosed until Inner City
Press asked.
According to what
senior Fifth (Budget)
Committee sources exclusively
tell Inner City Press,
Guterres claims he can't
estimate the cost or PBI until
he finds out what states will
voluntarily give him. Then how
can this reform be voted on
and be claimed to be
completed, a rare victory for
Guterres? (The sources also
tell Inner City Press that
Guterres made his appointment
of Achim Steiner to replace
Helen Clark as head of UNDP
contingent on Steiner
supporting UNDP's loss of the
resident coordinator system to
Amina Mohammed.) Dujarric did
not want to answer, and if the
past is any guide he will
pre-select the questions to
Guterres from among his
allies. Watch this site.
***
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