| UN Somalia Corrupt
Contracts with Insider IDed to
Inner City Press by Whistleblowers
by
Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book
Substack
UN GATE,
Nov 15 – How corrupt
is today's UN under Antonio
Guterres? Today's example is
his mission in Somalia, about
which his spokespeople
Stephane Dujarric and Melissa
Fleming refuse all Press
questions. Inner City Press
has asked them, and others,
about a sex abuse case against
the UN there. Now this, from a
UN whistleblower sent to Inner
City Press:
Dear Mr.
Lee: We are
seeing so many posts on ICP and in the media
these days, citing UN corruption,
coverup, HR irregularities, and generally
bad management. It is increasingly
recognized that the problem is becoming
endemic not only in the UN Secretariat, but
also in the UN System as a
whole.
The UN’s main mission in
Somalia is no different, and perhaps a bit
worse off than most. For the past few
years this mission has been following a path
of procurement irregularities and waste
which has cost the member states millions
and millions of dollars in unneeded
expenditures. There are many examples
of this, and here’s
one.
The UN procurement rules require that when a
contract period ends, and the service is
still needed, the contract is replaced in a
timely manner by a new contract which has
been won through a fair and competitive
procurement exercise.
This is one of many “Hard and Fast”
rules of UN procurement, and is designed to
ensure fair and transparent business
competition, a fair price, while
combating unscrupulous contractors and/or UN
staff. While exceptional contract
extensions can be approved by the most
senior managers (the ones holding what the
UN calls a delegation), these exceptional
extensions are normally for a period of
three, maybe four months. So why has a
main engineering high-value contract been
extended a full 2-1/2 years past it’s last
possible extension date. Contract number
PD/C0056/17.
Doesn’t make sense,
right? But it does
make sense! The contract provides the
vendor – a company with in-country ownership
in close Government connections - a monthly
standing payout of $750,000 regardless of
what little work is done. So that’s
over 20M in tax payers’ dollars that should
not have been disbursed in the last 30
months, and yes; this amount of money goes a
very long way in this environment.
It’s difficult to believe the HQ’s talk of a
UN’s liquidity crisis when things like this
are happening. The UN's stance does
not make
sense.
A closer examination" - to follow
We'll have
more on all this. No answer from UN
Spox Dujarric on this, or nomination of Elise Stefanik. Keep
the info coming.
***
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