and thought this would be of interest...
http://www.whistleblower.org/template/index.cfm
10/11/2007
UNDP Draft Whistleblower Protections Inadequate
In the past few months, numerous whistleblowers have come forward with allegations of corruption and retaliation at the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
Many of them believed that they would be protected by UN Secretary General Bulletin ST/SGB/2005/21 (SGB), approved in December 2005, entitled "Protection against retaliation for reporting misconduct and for cooperating with duly authorized audits or investigations." Recent developments, however, show that they were mistaken.
They have been told that UNDP has opted-out of coverage by the SGB in favor of its own protection policy. GAP, which provided counsel and technical assistance in the formulation of the SGB, has obtained a draft copy of the UNDP policy, dated September 20, 2007. This "Updated UNDP Legal Framework for Addressing Non-Compliance with UN Standards of Conduct," sets out UNDP's procedures for investigating misconduct and retaliation. Although the UNDP Framework has not yet been finally approved, the Legal Support Office maintains that its provisions are currently in use as a guide for investigating retaliation.
To address the discrepancies between the two policies, GAP has prepared a comparison of the proposed whistleblower provisions in the UNDP Legal Framework and the SGB, using "International Best Practices for Whistleblower Policies at Intergovernmental Organizations" as a guide. GAP found the UNDP Legal Framework to be substantially weaker than the SGB in several key areas including: due process rights, the statute of limitations, staff covered, the burden of proof, interim relief measures, retaliation sanctions and the provisions for reporting misconduct through external channels.
The UNDP Legal Framework often borrows paragraphs virtually verbatim from the SGB, deleting (or adding) only select words and phrases, apparently for the purpose of restricting the scope of coverage and compromising the objectivity of investigations. In doing so, the UNDP Legal Framework weakens the original policy developed for the organization.
Overall the UNDP Legal Framework also disregards the developments of the past two years during which management, staff, and member states have shown a determination to move the United Nations system toward an integrated and impartial internal justice system.
Click here to read GAP's comparison between the UN and UNDP policies.
Click here to read a chart comparing International Best Practices, the UN and UNDP policies.
Click here to read the Updated UNDP Legal Framework for Addressing Non-Compliance with UN Standards of Conduct
Click here to read International Best Practices for Whistleblower Policies at Intergovernmental Organizations
(The information above was received from a kind person who sent me an e-mail in this regard.)
On 20 December 2005 The Government Accountability Project (GAP) praised the United Nations for issuing a new standard of whistleblower protection in an anti-retaliation policy released today as a Secretary General’s Bulletin.
Then on 26 July 2007 The New York Sun reported in an article “Whistleblower Cases Highlight Capricious U.N. Enforcement:”
“The Government Accountability Project, a Washington-based organization that helped the United Nations write whistleblower protections two years ago, is following several cases at the United Nations. "It appears that the Secretariat makes the rules as it goes along," the international director of the project, Beatrice Edwards, said yesterday.”
In response to the e-mail I wrote:
“Thank you very much for your kind letter sending me this information.
I do of course follow the work of GAP quite closely and am very pleased that their attention has finally come to focus on UNDP.
The problems with UNDP are quite serious, I do maintain that it functions and reacts more like a crime syndicate than an international institution. The way that they are reacting to the jurisdiction of the Ethics Office and their insistence of wanting to play only by their own rules are further proof of that.
It will take a concerted effort as well as a thorough independent investigation to bring them to task. The fact that Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's promise in January 2007 of a "world-wide audit of all programmes and funds" has since come to nothing, makes it even more imperative that outsiders should drive the process of reform, not only of the United Nations in general, but specifically and urgently of UNDP.”
GAP has done some outstanding work in dealing with corruption, their campaign against the World Bank standing out in this regard, as well as protecting whistleblowers in both the UN and the World Bank.
On 25 March 2005 GAP reported that: “U.N. whistleblower and Government Accountability Project (GAP) client Dr. Andrew Thomson returned to work Monday, March 21, with a promotion and new contract, four months after effectively being terminated for co-authoring a book highly critical of the United Nations and its peacekeeping operations. This follows U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s leadership in ordering, under pressure from members of Congress and GAP, a two-month reprieve of Thomson’s dismissal last December 31.”
The book, which became a minor bestseller and apparently is soon to be made into a mini-series is “Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures: A True Story from Hell on Earth” by Andrew Thomson, Kenneth Cain and Heidi Postelwait.
Thomson noted, “Now it is illegal to harass whistleblowers the way I was openly retaliated against before last Christmas.”
And GAP supported this optimism with: “For many who have suffered reprisal for reporting misconduct, this policy offers vindication and hope that their service to the mission of the United Nations will henceforth be acknowledged and rewarded.”
Fat chance.
There is still a lot to be done and it would probably be a long-term effort. I maintain that most of these people at the UN and especially UNDP are common criminals that would not let go of their privileged lifestyles outside and above the law without putting up a fight.
I had in the past requested assistance from GAP and include their response to me as a comment to this post.
It is not meant as a complaint or criticism.
If anything it should highlight the difficulties we all face in investigating accountability issues, especially within the very complex arrangements characterized by International Institutions.
It will take a concerted effort by many people – organizations as well as individuals – to improve the current shameful state of affairs.
Friday 12 October 2007
Wednesday 10 October 2007
Any Response Yet?
This comment posted at the end of Press Release (and the resulting tantrum by UNDP) remain as relevant now as when it was first posted. It is therefore moved here in the interest of requesting Stephen Kinloch if in the intervening months he has managed to decide on a possible response yet. (And I do not consider the inability of UNDP to provide straightforward answers to simple questions as an excuse for ongoing silence.)
Assunto: Defamatory use of online service:
http://www.publishedauthors.net/leonkukkuk/events.html
Remetente: stephen.kinloch-pichat@undp.org
Data: Fri, 24 Novembro 2006 00:03
Para: leonkukkuk@publishedauthors.net
Dear Mr. Kukkuk,
It has just come to my attention that my name, together with that of several colleagues who either work or have worked for the United Nations (UN) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Angola or elsewhere, is mentioned in hidden (but searchable and
readable) text, together with defamatory terms such as 'fraud'
or 'corruption' in your webpage:
http://www.publishedauthors.net/leonkukkuk/events.html
As you are probably aware, the use of a computer or online service to defame a person carries with it severe potential liability, including for any related claims, proceedings, damages, injuries, liabilities, losses, costs, and expenses.
Therefore, I would like to kindly request you to immediately and completely delete all personal reference, whether hidden or visible, to my name and that of other colleagues from the above mentioned website, and any other website that you may have published.
I have already alerted PublishedAuthors.Net. In order to avoid further measures, I would appreciate your acknowledging receipt of this email and confirming that you have made taken appropriate corrective action.
Yours sincerely,
Stephen Kinloch
Advisor, Strategic Planning
Office of the Resident Coordinator
United Nations - Port-au-Prince
Dear Mr. Kinloch,
In the preamble to my book “Letters to Gabriella Angola’s Last War for Peace: What the UN did and Why” I say:
“I strive at all times to give a fair and honest account of what might have occurred or of what was said. There are those who gave me information in the strictest confidence, who may now be surprised to find it repeated here. I do not apologise for this. Those guarantees of confidentiality were given in exchange for certain promises, these not having been fulfilled, the confidentiality then no longer holds. There may be still be others who might be aggrieved to find they have been quoted and identified; yet again I am reluctant for apologising for doing so, for those most likely to be the loudest in their protestations draw their salaries from public money and donations and they should not expect, much less demand, to be working surrounded by a cloak of secrecy and anonymity.”
You, Mr. Kinloch, as well as your colleagues, are all public servants, drawing your salaries from public money and are thus subject to public scrutiny, being named and identified publicly at the discretion of any member of the public, if they believe that to be in the public interest.
It is not as if I had not been anticipating a tantrum. What I had not anticipated was how long it would take for the first tantrum to arrive.
I am also surprised as to how people, who have demonstrated a total inability to arrange something as basic as an audit, show such alarming enthusiasm to threaten me with “further measures,” surely a substantially more expensive and complex thing to arrange. You are not the first UNDP staff member to threaten me with such, and it may well be that you may not be the last, and my response now remains the same as it has always been: There is nothing that would please me more.
There may possibly be a case to be made for defamation. There is definitely a case for severe potential liability, including for any related claims, proceedings, damages, injuries, liabilities, losses, costs, and expenses. It neither instance are these cases to be made by any UNDP staff member.
Please bear with me through this argument. That way we can establish exactly where we stand.
My book is about fraud. It is principally, but not exclusively, concerned with a scam planned, financed and executed by UNDP, under the guise of a project in Huambo, Angola, of which I was in charge. The book goes into huge detail regarding the anatomy of this scam; it was read by several legal specialists before publication and has since publication attracted a fair amount of meaningful and constructive feedback.
There is no doubt whatsoever that a scam was perpetuated and that UNDP was responsible for this scam. The only measurable outcome of this project, ostensibly designed to assist poor and vulnerable people in Huambo, Angola was that at the end of it, a white man, called John Dommett, from Johannesburg, South Africa, was a millionaire.
This outcome did not happen by accident. It was designed to have this outcome. UNDP staff did not design it like this because they were unable to distinguish between a white man and poor and vulnerable Africans or because they considered John Dommett to be especially needy and somehow entitled to receive UN funds. They did not even do it for altruistic reasons.
If there is anybody that disagrees with this analysis, I urge them to read the book, and to then present me with a counter argument based on the relevant documents.
During the course of my investigations into this scam, conducted over a period of more than six years, and based on a sometimes overwhelming volume of documents, interviews and in-depth research I managed to identify, and name in the book, a number of UN officials, all of whom have left, and still leaves, unanswered questions and concerns in relation to this scam in particular, and the prevalence of corruption and fraud within UNDP in general.
These individuals are: Mark Malloch Brown, James Lee, Dimitri Samaras, Bisrat Aklilu, Michele Falavigna, Erick de Mul, Michel Balima, Stanislaus Nkwain, Stephen Kinloch, Francisco de Almeida.
All of these individuals are involved in one or more aspects of this scam: Oversight (complete lack thereof), planning, executing, covering up, assisting to cover up, ignoring.
Some were involved over a period of many years, others for only a few hours. Some acted on their own initiative, others simply followed instructions. Some play a central role, others acted only on the periphery. Some made deliberate decisions, others did so inadvertently. Some embraced the scam with enthusiasm, others were indifferent, yet others were involved only very reluctantly.
What each and every one of the people named have in common is that the contribution of each and every one, no matter how small, is significant and instrumental in ensuring the perpetuation of this scam over many years and the eventual attempt to cover it up.
The consensus of UNDP as a corrupt, fraudulent, wasteful and inept institution is pretty near universal and I am not now going to enter into that debate. This state of affairs at UNDP is not the result of angels who came fluttering out of the sky and do funny things, neither is it the result of a mysterious force acting upon UNDP. It is also not the mysterious “them” that UNDP staff refers to when reflecting on their organisation. It is the direct, causal result of the staff at UNDP and the decisions that they make. Those who turn a blind eye or ignore wrongdoing around them help foster the atmosphere of corruption and impunity at UNDP. Staff indulge not only in fraud but also in wasteful, fantasy projects (also a form of fraud) knowing that they can rely on managers to cover up for them and to promote them out of harms way when required. Managers cover up fraud and waste knowing that there is no oversight whatsoever within the organisation, no sense of holding responsible staff accountable and that senior management will protect them and the organisation with a barrage of misinformation and spin to the media, drowning out all dissenting voices.
Every single staff member at UNDP is complicit in this; even the honest ones who try and survive within the organisation as best they can by remaining largely invisible. Knowing about wrongdoing and doing nothing about it is a crime. Planning and financing a scam and leaving it to others to execute, sometimes inadvertently, is a crime. Wasting public money is a crime. Using public money for private gain is a crime. That is the law. Staff at UNDP can argue otherwise as much as they like. It still remains the law.
Naming and shaming is a recognized tool for ensuring compliance with the law and to foster a sense of accountability and transparency. It is a tool that the UN itself uses. It is a particularly useful and appropriate tool within the context of the United Nations, which is functionally immune to prosecution, where many staff members hide behind immunities that they have not earned and do not deserve, where corruption and fraud is so endemic that one frequently encounter UN public servants that firmly believe that it is their right to steal.
For four years I raised my concerns with UNDP in a measured and reasonable manner. I was met at first with indifference and resistance, then for a short time with a half-hearted and pretty hopeless attempt to address my concerns, followed rapidly by threats, intimidation, accusation and an outright refusal to communicate with me. (That is the reason why this response to Stephen Kinloch is done publicly and not directly to him.)
In the interest of fairness I had contemplated initially providing a short summary of the role of Stephen Kinloch in the events as recounted in my book by way of justifying why I tag his name (amongst others) to much of what I write in promoting that book. He is a public servant after all, as well as somebody who expresses various opinions, publishes and had made searchable and readable those opinions on the internet. It is therefore reasonable for me to believe that there may be third parties interested in acquiring more information on him and what he does in the public domain. These are all potential buyers of the book in which he is mentioned. No value judgement is implied or intended when doing this. The fact that a name may appear on a page that also contains the words “fraud” and “corruption” by itself is meaningless. Simultaneity does not prove a relationship; much less the nature of the relationship. It may be of concern to somebody with something to hide. I am always quite proud to find my name on pages that also contain the words “fraud” and “corruption.” Yet any relationship can only be established through language, grammar and deductive logic.
However, extracting his case, spread over several chapters, from a complex narrative and presenting it coherently as well as concisely appears to me a daunting task.
What I will do instead is provide a short summary of the main theme in my book to provide some context, followed then simply by all the correspondence between Stephen Kinloch and myself. It should provide at least some explanation. This may be unsatisfactory to many, including perhaps Stephen Kinloch himself. All I can do in my defence is to urge you to read the book.
By way of summary I will quote from “Angola: Empire of the Humanitarians” an excellent paper by Sreeram Chaulia:
“Kukkuk’s remarkable testimony of corruption, deceit and lies in the UNDP bears elaboration. RUTEC, a South African company with dubious links to diamond dealers, started a ‘micro enterprise development project’ in Huambo in 1998 with $1.5 million of funding from UNDP and UNOPS (UN Office for Project Services). The author, who was selected as the Project Director, found to his shock that only a pitifully small amount of money actually reached him on the ground in Huambo. “This contract seemed to neatly sidestep the usually strict procurement rules in place within the UN system.” RUTEC was chosen as sub-contractor by UNDP although this company was spurious, lacking local roots and planning for what kinds of training would benefit the war-affected economy. The author’s higher-ups in RUTEC instructed him, “We do not have to tell anybody what we are doing in Huambo and what we are spending on this project.” (p.217). Progress reports submitted to UNOPS contained no financial statements. There was no competitive bidding or justification shown by UNDP for choosing RUTEC as the sub-contractor. Under the CRP, projects had to be reviewed and authorised by a local appraisal committee. RUTEC never received one. UNDP “got involved, planned and gave money to a project that none of its staff understood or made an effort to learn to understand.” RUTEC was “yet another typical UNDP mess, a fiasco that usually accompanies UNDP projects.” For RUTEC to get vehicle documents, imported equipment or even work visas, well-paid UNDP staff requested “missing documents” (euphemism for $100 bills). RUTEC in Johannesburg was, on its part, harnessing this “sweetheart deal with UNOPS”, further increasing its profits by over-invoicing and manipulating equipment transfers to Angola.”
“Kukkuk recalls the irony of UNDP coining catchy slogans like ‘Project Management, Good Governance and Anti-Corruption’ before putting its own house in order. It employed bureaucratic blockades to cover up scandals like RUTEC and provided excuses for inaction.”
“For the Huambo project’s local employees who were cheated of their salaries by UNDP, “those who lose are always us, due to the fact that it is foreigners that drive the train of deceit.” They repeatedly requested UNDP to “be more human”. When it was to no avail, they accused UNDP of being “the main violator of human rights whilst presenting yourself as the protector of these same rights.””
Here is our correspondence:
Leon Kukkuk on 01 September 2001, soon after the arrival of Stephen Kinloch in Angola as a Deputy Resident Representative UNDP to arrange a meeting:
Please let me know when it would be possible for us to meet.
We used to have a project in Huambo that was unfortunately severely mismanaged and now the subject of lots of to-ing and fro-ing tracing and hopefully recovering funds that had been paid but was not spent on the project. In spite of this the project achieved some very positive results.
All the problems are putting the possibility of raising additional funds under severe strain and need to be solved. I am under lots of pressure from the local authorities to provide some answers and things have now dragged on for several years since I had initially raised the issues with UNDP.
On the same day from Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk:
As early as possible. As you know, the beginning of the week is going to be quite busy. What about Wednesday at 15:00 in my office?
Leon Kukkuk to Stephen Kinloch 05 September 2001:
Thank you very much for taking time to talk to me. As always I am hoping for a positive outcome.
Attached, please find two documents that provide a summery of the project that should be in the file. A brief perusal indicated that they were perhaps not there any longer.
Also find a copy of my CV.
A talk with Allan Cain from Development Workshop would perhaps be more useful as follow up - free from the intricacies of UNDP and distortion through personal involvement.
On the same day from Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk:
Thanks, Leon, I really appreciate your taking the time to come and see me. Sorry, really, for the difficulties you have been going through. I will seize any opportunity to meet with Allan Cain, and keep you posted. Have a very good evening. Stephen
On 21 September 2001 from Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk:
Leon,
To keep you posted of developments.
This office is now following-up with UNOPS in New York.
The idea is to obtain a thorough evaluation/audit of the whole project.
There will be no, repeat: no, new activities, at least until such an audit has taken place.
Meanwhile, we are also looking seriously into ways to compensate former staff for unpaid salaries.
This is not meant to raise any expectations, or make promises, but to assess what can be done.
We all have to act responsibly on all sides, as partners who can respect each other.
I therefore look forward to your cooperation, and to staying in touch with you.
I also trust your judgement on relaying that message to those concerned.
Should you wish to contact me, please do not hesitate.
Have a very good week-end, and take care.
On the same day Leon Kukkuk to Stephen Kinloch:
Respect is something earned, not given.
There will be no, repeat no orders given to me regarding new activities.
On 23 September 2001 Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk wrote back:
Leon,
Perhaps my message was not clear enough:
I meant: no activities from UNDP side, of course.
As for respect. . . may we, then, all have to earn it?
I look forward to it, from both sides.
Thanks and regards.
(Note: The promised audit never took place.)
On 09 October 2001 Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk:
As you know, we are actively working on finding a solution for the settlement of pending salaries for staff of the Huambo Training Centre (ANG/96/B01 BL2101) for the months the staff worked without salary after the termination of the project.
Attached is the list of pending salaries we have received from you.
As the documents I have at my disposal are not always consistent, I should be grateful if you could confirm that the period covered is end of July 2000 to end of January 2000 or, if not, if you could provide me with the specific dates for which salary is claimed for each person.
I also note that you are not included in the list of staff whose salary is pending, although I understand you have also been working during the period concerned. Could you clarify this as well?
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
On 18 October 2001 from Leon Kukkuk to Stephen Kinloch:
Attached is a summary of all amounts outstanding to a total of $95 207.78 (before end October 2001).
Our account details are as follows:
. . .
We are looking forward to a prompt solution to this issue.
Although we won’t find any compensation for the mental anguish, stress and waste of our lives caused by this mess, a final resolution would also depend on the following three issues:
1. Some very clear answers need to be given regarding who planned this project, why they planned it, who protected it for more than three years and what steps are being taken to prevent them planning similar things in the future.
2. It has come to my attention that there is a perception amongst certain people that I am the one being investigated for misappropriating funds. I strongly suspect that Jurgen Spangenberg, from the UNDP Insecurity Unit, is responsible for this perception. Whatever the case may be, this is as serious as it is unacceptable. Do you have any suggestions how this misunderstanding can be cleared up? I will highly appreciate it.
I am looking forward to better relations in the future (naturally with a UNDP that is diametrically different from what is now)
Thank you very much and hoping to hear from you soon.
On 21 October 2001 from Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk:
Thank you very much for the information.
However, in the table, there are elements that we have not discussed, while the precise information earlier requested is not present.
As per my previous email (below), I should be most grateful if you could confirm for each person concerned the precise amounts of unpaid salaries and corresponding dates for the period end of July 2000 to end of January 2000, that is after the termination of the project.
Please note that I will be away until 28 of October as of today.
My colleague, Francisco de Almeida, will be following-up in my absence.
On 25 October 2001 from Leon Kukkuk to Francisco de Almeida:
Francisco, The list contains the salaries of the national staff for the months of July 2000 to February 2001 inclusive, minus amounts paid to them from two sources - either from my own funds or from the sale of equipment. Although the centre closed at the end of January 2001 this was a decision only taken on 22 January 2001 after we had not received any responses to the e-mails (14 January 2001) sent to Teresa Felix and Stan Nkwain and a letter (14 January 2001) to the Co-ordinator of the UN system. We were therefore obliged to offer the staff a months notice and severance pay. Carlos Alberto Gomes is offered an amount of -- per month for looking after the equipment and vehicles from March 2001 to August 2001 (--), under very difficult and at times threatening circumstances.
On the same day from Francisco de Almeida to Leon Kukkuk:
The message below was certainly sent to me by mistake. I am not handling this issue that, I must confess, is getting more and more confused. Stephen will be back early next week. Please liase with him to find out the status of the payment of salaries amounting to $33,340 to the local staff that our Office exceptionally accepted to advance while working out the final solution with RUTEC and UNOPS.
Regards, Francisco
On 01 November 2001 from Leon Kukkuk to Stephen Kinloch:
I appreciate your efforts.
Please provide me with some sort of timescale:
1. for payment of amount of local salaries.
2. Of audit.
Remember, as more time passes more darkness will be shed on this subject, and more expenses accumulate. The time that I am spending without an income or freedom to secure a reliable means of income is also becoming unacceptably long and need to be taken into consideration.
On the same day from Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk:
Thank you very much for the data on unpaid amounts related to the project, as requested. I truly appreciate your effort to provide a comprehensive picture of the situation, which does give an idea of the problem.
Unfortunately, it also appears more and more that given its complexity, the lack of consistency sometimes between various figures, and the number of actors involved, only a thorough audit could at this stage help determining accurately responsibilities, duties and amounts involved, to settle the issue. We are following up with UNOPS, from whom a response has not yet been received.
Meanwhile, pending such clarification, UNDP has expressed its willingness, and is determined, to settle from its own resources the most immediate, urgent, and clear-cut aspect of the problem, which is the payment of local staff for the period they have been working while not under contract.
Given the above, steps are now been made by this office to settle payment of salaries to local staff for the period of July 2000 and February 2001, on the basis of the attached table received from the staff, as initially envisaged.
This obviously does not meet all expectations and does not sort out or solve all problems, but at least allows us to move forward.
I truly hope it will nevertheless be viewed as a concrete step in the right direction, and will keep you posted of developments in due course.
On 20 November 2001 from Leon Kukkuk to Stephen Kinloch:
Dear Stephen,
I am not getting any response regarding the sort of timetable for payment of local salaries or audit, but have decided to spend the rest of the year in Huambo.
Please keep me up to date with what is happening. The tel. system in Huambo appears to continue to be less than reliable but I can be contacted through WFP radioroom or OCHA as alternatives should it be necessary.
I would very much appreciate your assistance in this regard.
Have a good holiday season + Christmas, etc.
On 26 November 2002 from Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk:
Thanks for your message. And apologies for my delay in responding to you.
Salaries for local staff (based on table initially submitted by them) have been approved and are being processed for payment. The issue of a formal audit is still being followed up with UNOPS New York.
Unfortunately, for reasons beyond my control, I am no longer authorized to be in touch with you formally on behalf of UNDP, so please do not consider this message as official communication, but as a personal and informal message.
Best wishes to you too.
On 24 January 2002 the last meaningful correspondence with UNDP from Leon Kukkuk to Francisco de Almeida:
We are in receipt of your letter of 22 January 2002 and it has been distributed to some of the staff. We are looking forward to have the considerable ill feeling and confusion related to this project cleared once and for all.
. . .
In addition I would like to request that you stay directly in contact with me. Working through intermediaries and Carlos Gomes, who is working in Kaála, creates a lot of extra work and confusion. If it is the case that UNDP no longer wants to talk to me or that I am persona non grata or responsible for the current problems, the correct procedure would be to motivate this decision by way of the available documentation. Until such a time, I have been responsible for the project and am now responsible to find a solution to its problems. This is a decision taken amongst ourselves and will remain the case until we decide otherwise.
As you may be well aware, I have tried my utmost to find a solution in an agreeable and open manner through maintaining good relations with UNDP in the face of threats, insults, disrespect and gross incompetence on their part. In over three years we have made no progress or received any meaningful responses. If UNDP cannot respond in a like manner, one becomes inclined to believe that perhaps they have something to hide. This is unsuitable behaviour for a public agency that depends for its survival on contributions of our money. I sincerely hope the present circumstances will not continue indefinitely.
It has continued indefinitely.
Over the intervening years my understanding of corruption also increased dramatically. Corrupt practices are invariably very complex, deliberately so, confusion is a key element in how they function and even if they can be unravelled, a wealth of technical jargon makes it difficult to recount the process in a manner that can be readily understood. I am now more aware of how scams are hidden behind a veneer of legitimacy, with legally enforceable contracts, carefully designed to fit into the cracks between different agencies, institutions and governments, even the cracks between national and international law. I now know how accountability is spread so thinly as to be virtually meaningless, which incidentally, combined with complex and overlapping bureaucratic systems, also provides the required opacity for these scams to function. Deniability, or potential deniability, remains the primary motivation informing key decisions at all levels. I now know how the strange audit procedures within the UN system encourage rather than prevent corruption. In looking forward to an audit at UNDP, which never happened, I did not then realise that I was looking forward to process that is used to cover up crimes, not to expose them.
For a long time I naively believed that all I needed to do was to make UNDP aware of how much harm their behaviour was causing and then they would stop. It was too late for me by the time I understood the need for scapegoats in scams and that in this project I was to be that scapegoat. There was no concern about what would happen to the local staff, they were not even considered as human beings. As I embarked in 2002 on a series of interviews explaining the circumstances of this UNDP scam, I immediately found myself under attack by UNDP as Francisco de Almeida reacted thus (and I quote from one of his own documents):
“In a live interview I informed Mr. Mario Vaz from Radio Ecclésia and the listeners of the 12 o’clock news journal that the allegations made by Mr Leon Kukkuk did not correspond to the truth. I clarified the following:
If there was misappropriation of funds, Mr Leon Kukkuk in his capacity of former RUTEC Programme Manager would be the best person to provide any clarification on this manner;”
I am indeed the best person to provide this clarification and have since complied with this request in writing my book, a book that incidentally is the only thing that stands today between myself and me being on the receiving end of accusations and suspicion of corruption. To date nobody from the United Nations System or from UNDP has responded to the conclusions drawn in that book. There may be a case to be made for defamation. It is not a case that can be made easily, by one individual pitted against a corrupt and powerful organisation.
The last official reaction from UNDP comes in the form of a statement issued on 13 January 2002, by Erick de Mul, at the time the UNDP Resident Representative in Angola. Acknowledging the difficulties that we had suffered over so many years and guaranteeing that “our office has pledged to do everything since the end of 2000 to find a solution to this difficult situation,” he then proceeds to deny any wrongdoing, stating instead:
“However, as you know UNDP did not have any direct responsibility in the execution and implementation of the (project) in the province of Huambo. The responsibility of UNDP is limited to the formulation and financing of the project.”
With this statement whatever little respect I may ever have had for Erick de Mul (and it was never very much) disappeared along with the last vestiges of whatever confidence I may have had in UNDP or any of its staff. In searching for any precedence to this sort of argument, I almost immediately stumbled on the names of what is generally considered the vilest criminals of the twentieth century, who tried to use a similar argument and did not get away with it.
There is no reason why UNDP should get away with it.
Stephen Kinloch, you may be dismayed to find that you are being identified and named. It is nothing personal. Neither you nor any of your colleagues mean anything to me as individuals. It is simply a matter of your names having surfaced in an issue with which I am concerned. I am fully entitled to use those names in this context and to use them again if they crop up again in any other context. I make no apologies for that. Everybody that I have named still work for the United Nations, some have even been promoted, most are no longer in Angola. I was the one left behind, trying to cope, alone, with the shambles created by UNDP.
Nevertheless, I am not even picking only on UNDP. The Danish Refugee Council (examples here and here), Medicines sans Frontières, Medicines du Monde and DAPP are all currently under my spotlight.
UNDP may already be quite good at this but they still have a lot to learn from the Danish Refugee Council on how to use fear, insult and intimidation as a management tool. UNDP might comfortably stumble along in its own little bubble; it is yet to achieve the same obliviousness to its surroundings as do MSF. UNDP might be endemically corrupt, its scams however pale into small-scale, amateurish insignificance compared to those of DAPP, who send out criminal gangs to dominate entire countries.
I am concerned with the role of the entire International Community, whose members enter into my home, Africa, only long enough to make a mess, destroying not only my life but the lives of everybody around me, and then disappear.
This makes us go hungry, it makes us fight wars with one another, and it makes us indulge in our own corruption. We suffer from AIDS, TB and Malaria and our children die in vast numbers. There is definitely a case for severe potential liability, including for any related claims, proceedings, damages, injuries, liabilities, losses, costs, and expenses.
Are you prepared to make that case?
Assunto: Defamatory use of online service:
http://www.publishedauthors.net/leonkukkuk/events.html
Remetente: stephen.kinloch-pichat@undp.org
Data: Fri, 24 Novembro 2006 00:03
Para: leonkukkuk@publishedauthors.net
Dear Mr. Kukkuk,
It has just come to my attention that my name, together with that of several colleagues who either work or have worked for the United Nations (UN) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Angola or elsewhere, is mentioned in hidden (but searchable and
readable) text, together with defamatory terms such as 'fraud'
or 'corruption' in your webpage:
http://www.publishedauthors.net/leonkukkuk/events.html
As you are probably aware, the use of a computer or online service to defame a person carries with it severe potential liability, including for any related claims, proceedings, damages, injuries, liabilities, losses, costs, and expenses.
Therefore, I would like to kindly request you to immediately and completely delete all personal reference, whether hidden or visible, to my name and that of other colleagues from the above mentioned website, and any other website that you may have published.
I have already alerted PublishedAuthors.Net. In order to avoid further measures, I would appreciate your acknowledging receipt of this email and confirming that you have made taken appropriate corrective action.
Yours sincerely,
Stephen Kinloch
Advisor, Strategic Planning
Office of the Resident Coordinator
United Nations - Port-au-Prince
Dear Mr. Kinloch,
In the preamble to my book “Letters to Gabriella Angola’s Last War for Peace: What the UN did and Why” I say:
“I strive at all times to give a fair and honest account of what might have occurred or of what was said. There are those who gave me information in the strictest confidence, who may now be surprised to find it repeated here. I do not apologise for this. Those guarantees of confidentiality were given in exchange for certain promises, these not having been fulfilled, the confidentiality then no longer holds. There may be still be others who might be aggrieved to find they have been quoted and identified; yet again I am reluctant for apologising for doing so, for those most likely to be the loudest in their protestations draw their salaries from public money and donations and they should not expect, much less demand, to be working surrounded by a cloak of secrecy and anonymity.”
You, Mr. Kinloch, as well as your colleagues, are all public servants, drawing your salaries from public money and are thus subject to public scrutiny, being named and identified publicly at the discretion of any member of the public, if they believe that to be in the public interest.
It is not as if I had not been anticipating a tantrum. What I had not anticipated was how long it would take for the first tantrum to arrive.
I am also surprised as to how people, who have demonstrated a total inability to arrange something as basic as an audit, show such alarming enthusiasm to threaten me with “further measures,” surely a substantially more expensive and complex thing to arrange. You are not the first UNDP staff member to threaten me with such, and it may well be that you may not be the last, and my response now remains the same as it has always been: There is nothing that would please me more.
There may possibly be a case to be made for defamation. There is definitely a case for severe potential liability, including for any related claims, proceedings, damages, injuries, liabilities, losses, costs, and expenses. It neither instance are these cases to be made by any UNDP staff member.
Please bear with me through this argument. That way we can establish exactly where we stand.
My book is about fraud. It is principally, but not exclusively, concerned with a scam planned, financed and executed by UNDP, under the guise of a project in Huambo, Angola, of which I was in charge. The book goes into huge detail regarding the anatomy of this scam; it was read by several legal specialists before publication and has since publication attracted a fair amount of meaningful and constructive feedback.
There is no doubt whatsoever that a scam was perpetuated and that UNDP was responsible for this scam. The only measurable outcome of this project, ostensibly designed to assist poor and vulnerable people in Huambo, Angola was that at the end of it, a white man, called John Dommett, from Johannesburg, South Africa, was a millionaire.
This outcome did not happen by accident. It was designed to have this outcome. UNDP staff did not design it like this because they were unable to distinguish between a white man and poor and vulnerable Africans or because they considered John Dommett to be especially needy and somehow entitled to receive UN funds. They did not even do it for altruistic reasons.
If there is anybody that disagrees with this analysis, I urge them to read the book, and to then present me with a counter argument based on the relevant documents.
During the course of my investigations into this scam, conducted over a period of more than six years, and based on a sometimes overwhelming volume of documents, interviews and in-depth research I managed to identify, and name in the book, a number of UN officials, all of whom have left, and still leaves, unanswered questions and concerns in relation to this scam in particular, and the prevalence of corruption and fraud within UNDP in general.
These individuals are: Mark Malloch Brown, James Lee, Dimitri Samaras, Bisrat Aklilu, Michele Falavigna, Erick de Mul, Michel Balima, Stanislaus Nkwain, Stephen Kinloch, Francisco de Almeida.
All of these individuals are involved in one or more aspects of this scam: Oversight (complete lack thereof), planning, executing, covering up, assisting to cover up, ignoring.
Some were involved over a period of many years, others for only a few hours. Some acted on their own initiative, others simply followed instructions. Some play a central role, others acted only on the periphery. Some made deliberate decisions, others did so inadvertently. Some embraced the scam with enthusiasm, others were indifferent, yet others were involved only very reluctantly.
What each and every one of the people named have in common is that the contribution of each and every one, no matter how small, is significant and instrumental in ensuring the perpetuation of this scam over many years and the eventual attempt to cover it up.
The consensus of UNDP as a corrupt, fraudulent, wasteful and inept institution is pretty near universal and I am not now going to enter into that debate. This state of affairs at UNDP is not the result of angels who came fluttering out of the sky and do funny things, neither is it the result of a mysterious force acting upon UNDP. It is also not the mysterious “them” that UNDP staff refers to when reflecting on their organisation. It is the direct, causal result of the staff at UNDP and the decisions that they make. Those who turn a blind eye or ignore wrongdoing around them help foster the atmosphere of corruption and impunity at UNDP. Staff indulge not only in fraud but also in wasteful, fantasy projects (also a form of fraud) knowing that they can rely on managers to cover up for them and to promote them out of harms way when required. Managers cover up fraud and waste knowing that there is no oversight whatsoever within the organisation, no sense of holding responsible staff accountable and that senior management will protect them and the organisation with a barrage of misinformation and spin to the media, drowning out all dissenting voices.
Every single staff member at UNDP is complicit in this; even the honest ones who try and survive within the organisation as best they can by remaining largely invisible. Knowing about wrongdoing and doing nothing about it is a crime. Planning and financing a scam and leaving it to others to execute, sometimes inadvertently, is a crime. Wasting public money is a crime. Using public money for private gain is a crime. That is the law. Staff at UNDP can argue otherwise as much as they like. It still remains the law.
Naming and shaming is a recognized tool for ensuring compliance with the law and to foster a sense of accountability and transparency. It is a tool that the UN itself uses. It is a particularly useful and appropriate tool within the context of the United Nations, which is functionally immune to prosecution, where many staff members hide behind immunities that they have not earned and do not deserve, where corruption and fraud is so endemic that one frequently encounter UN public servants that firmly believe that it is their right to steal.
For four years I raised my concerns with UNDP in a measured and reasonable manner. I was met at first with indifference and resistance, then for a short time with a half-hearted and pretty hopeless attempt to address my concerns, followed rapidly by threats, intimidation, accusation and an outright refusal to communicate with me. (That is the reason why this response to Stephen Kinloch is done publicly and not directly to him.)
In the interest of fairness I had contemplated initially providing a short summary of the role of Stephen Kinloch in the events as recounted in my book by way of justifying why I tag his name (amongst others) to much of what I write in promoting that book. He is a public servant after all, as well as somebody who expresses various opinions, publishes and had made searchable and readable those opinions on the internet. It is therefore reasonable for me to believe that there may be third parties interested in acquiring more information on him and what he does in the public domain. These are all potential buyers of the book in which he is mentioned. No value judgement is implied or intended when doing this. The fact that a name may appear on a page that also contains the words “fraud” and “corruption” by itself is meaningless. Simultaneity does not prove a relationship; much less the nature of the relationship. It may be of concern to somebody with something to hide. I am always quite proud to find my name on pages that also contain the words “fraud” and “corruption.” Yet any relationship can only be established through language, grammar and deductive logic.
However, extracting his case, spread over several chapters, from a complex narrative and presenting it coherently as well as concisely appears to me a daunting task.
What I will do instead is provide a short summary of the main theme in my book to provide some context, followed then simply by all the correspondence between Stephen Kinloch and myself. It should provide at least some explanation. This may be unsatisfactory to many, including perhaps Stephen Kinloch himself. All I can do in my defence is to urge you to read the book.
By way of summary I will quote from “Angola: Empire of the Humanitarians” an excellent paper by Sreeram Chaulia:
“Kukkuk’s remarkable testimony of corruption, deceit and lies in the UNDP bears elaboration. RUTEC, a South African company with dubious links to diamond dealers, started a ‘micro enterprise development project’ in Huambo in 1998 with $1.5 million of funding from UNDP and UNOPS (UN Office for Project Services). The author, who was selected as the Project Director, found to his shock that only a pitifully small amount of money actually reached him on the ground in Huambo. “This contract seemed to neatly sidestep the usually strict procurement rules in place within the UN system.” RUTEC was chosen as sub-contractor by UNDP although this company was spurious, lacking local roots and planning for what kinds of training would benefit the war-affected economy. The author’s higher-ups in RUTEC instructed him, “We do not have to tell anybody what we are doing in Huambo and what we are spending on this project.” (p.217). Progress reports submitted to UNOPS contained no financial statements. There was no competitive bidding or justification shown by UNDP for choosing RUTEC as the sub-contractor. Under the CRP, projects had to be reviewed and authorised by a local appraisal committee. RUTEC never received one. UNDP “got involved, planned and gave money to a project that none of its staff understood or made an effort to learn to understand.” RUTEC was “yet another typical UNDP mess, a fiasco that usually accompanies UNDP projects.” For RUTEC to get vehicle documents, imported equipment or even work visas, well-paid UNDP staff requested “missing documents” (euphemism for $100 bills). RUTEC in Johannesburg was, on its part, harnessing this “sweetheart deal with UNOPS”, further increasing its profits by over-invoicing and manipulating equipment transfers to Angola.”
“Kukkuk recalls the irony of UNDP coining catchy slogans like ‘Project Management, Good Governance and Anti-Corruption’ before putting its own house in order. It employed bureaucratic blockades to cover up scandals like RUTEC and provided excuses for inaction.”
“For the Huambo project’s local employees who were cheated of their salaries by UNDP, “those who lose are always us, due to the fact that it is foreigners that drive the train of deceit.” They repeatedly requested UNDP to “be more human”. When it was to no avail, they accused UNDP of being “the main violator of human rights whilst presenting yourself as the protector of these same rights.””
Here is our correspondence:
Leon Kukkuk on 01 September 2001, soon after the arrival of Stephen Kinloch in Angola as a Deputy Resident Representative UNDP to arrange a meeting:
Please let me know when it would be possible for us to meet.
We used to have a project in Huambo that was unfortunately severely mismanaged and now the subject of lots of to-ing and fro-ing tracing and hopefully recovering funds that had been paid but was not spent on the project. In spite of this the project achieved some very positive results.
All the problems are putting the possibility of raising additional funds under severe strain and need to be solved. I am under lots of pressure from the local authorities to provide some answers and things have now dragged on for several years since I had initially raised the issues with UNDP.
On the same day from Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk:
As early as possible. As you know, the beginning of the week is going to be quite busy. What about Wednesday at 15:00 in my office?
Leon Kukkuk to Stephen Kinloch 05 September 2001:
Thank you very much for taking time to talk to me. As always I am hoping for a positive outcome.
Attached, please find two documents that provide a summery of the project that should be in the file. A brief perusal indicated that they were perhaps not there any longer.
Also find a copy of my CV.
A talk with Allan Cain from Development Workshop would perhaps be more useful as follow up - free from the intricacies of UNDP and distortion through personal involvement.
On the same day from Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk:
Thanks, Leon, I really appreciate your taking the time to come and see me. Sorry, really, for the difficulties you have been going through. I will seize any opportunity to meet with Allan Cain, and keep you posted. Have a very good evening. Stephen
On 21 September 2001 from Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk:
Leon,
To keep you posted of developments.
This office is now following-up with UNOPS in New York.
The idea is to obtain a thorough evaluation/audit of the whole project.
There will be no, repeat: no, new activities, at least until such an audit has taken place.
Meanwhile, we are also looking seriously into ways to compensate former staff for unpaid salaries.
This is not meant to raise any expectations, or make promises, but to assess what can be done.
We all have to act responsibly on all sides, as partners who can respect each other.
I therefore look forward to your cooperation, and to staying in touch with you.
I also trust your judgement on relaying that message to those concerned.
Should you wish to contact me, please do not hesitate.
Have a very good week-end, and take care.
On the same day Leon Kukkuk to Stephen Kinloch:
Respect is something earned, not given.
There will be no, repeat no orders given to me regarding new activities.
On 23 September 2001 Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk wrote back:
Leon,
Perhaps my message was not clear enough:
I meant: no activities from UNDP side, of course.
As for respect. . . may we, then, all have to earn it?
I look forward to it, from both sides.
Thanks and regards.
(Note: The promised audit never took place.)
On 09 October 2001 Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk:
As you know, we are actively working on finding a solution for the settlement of pending salaries for staff of the Huambo Training Centre (ANG/96/B01 BL2101) for the months the staff worked without salary after the termination of the project.
Attached is the list of pending salaries we have received from you.
As the documents I have at my disposal are not always consistent, I should be grateful if you could confirm that the period covered is end of July 2000 to end of January 2000 or, if not, if you could provide me with the specific dates for which salary is claimed for each person.
I also note that you are not included in the list of staff whose salary is pending, although I understand you have also been working during the period concerned. Could you clarify this as well?
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
On 18 October 2001 from Leon Kukkuk to Stephen Kinloch:
Attached is a summary of all amounts outstanding to a total of $95 207.78 (before end October 2001).
Our account details are as follows:
. . .
We are looking forward to a prompt solution to this issue.
Although we won’t find any compensation for the mental anguish, stress and waste of our lives caused by this mess, a final resolution would also depend on the following three issues:
1. Some very clear answers need to be given regarding who planned this project, why they planned it, who protected it for more than three years and what steps are being taken to prevent them planning similar things in the future.
2. It has come to my attention that there is a perception amongst certain people that I am the one being investigated for misappropriating funds. I strongly suspect that Jurgen Spangenberg, from the UNDP Insecurity Unit, is responsible for this perception. Whatever the case may be, this is as serious as it is unacceptable. Do you have any suggestions how this misunderstanding can be cleared up? I will highly appreciate it.
I am looking forward to better relations in the future (naturally with a UNDP that is diametrically different from what is now)
Thank you very much and hoping to hear from you soon.
On 21 October 2001 from Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk:
Thank you very much for the information.
However, in the table, there are elements that we have not discussed, while the precise information earlier requested is not present.
As per my previous email (below), I should be most grateful if you could confirm for each person concerned the precise amounts of unpaid salaries and corresponding dates for the period end of July 2000 to end of January 2000, that is after the termination of the project.
Please note that I will be away until 28 of October as of today.
My colleague, Francisco de Almeida, will be following-up in my absence.
On 25 October 2001 from Leon Kukkuk to Francisco de Almeida:
Francisco, The list contains the salaries of the national staff for the months of July 2000 to February 2001 inclusive, minus amounts paid to them from two sources - either from my own funds or from the sale of equipment. Although the centre closed at the end of January 2001 this was a decision only taken on 22 January 2001 after we had not received any responses to the e-mails (14 January 2001) sent to Teresa Felix and Stan Nkwain and a letter (14 January 2001) to the Co-ordinator of the UN system. We were therefore obliged to offer the staff a months notice and severance pay. Carlos Alberto Gomes is offered an amount of -- per month for looking after the equipment and vehicles from March 2001 to August 2001 (--), under very difficult and at times threatening circumstances.
On the same day from Francisco de Almeida to Leon Kukkuk:
The message below was certainly sent to me by mistake. I am not handling this issue that, I must confess, is getting more and more confused. Stephen will be back early next week. Please liase with him to find out the status of the payment of salaries amounting to $33,340 to the local staff that our Office exceptionally accepted to advance while working out the final solution with RUTEC and UNOPS.
Regards, Francisco
On 01 November 2001 from Leon Kukkuk to Stephen Kinloch:
I appreciate your efforts.
Please provide me with some sort of timescale:
1. for payment of amount of local salaries.
2. Of audit.
Remember, as more time passes more darkness will be shed on this subject, and more expenses accumulate. The time that I am spending without an income or freedom to secure a reliable means of income is also becoming unacceptably long and need to be taken into consideration.
On the same day from Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk:
Thank you very much for the data on unpaid amounts related to the project, as requested. I truly appreciate your effort to provide a comprehensive picture of the situation, which does give an idea of the problem.
Unfortunately, it also appears more and more that given its complexity, the lack of consistency sometimes between various figures, and the number of actors involved, only a thorough audit could at this stage help determining accurately responsibilities, duties and amounts involved, to settle the issue. We are following up with UNOPS, from whom a response has not yet been received.
Meanwhile, pending such clarification, UNDP has expressed its willingness, and is determined, to settle from its own resources the most immediate, urgent, and clear-cut aspect of the problem, which is the payment of local staff for the period they have been working while not under contract.
Given the above, steps are now been made by this office to settle payment of salaries to local staff for the period of July 2000 and February 2001, on the basis of the attached table received from the staff, as initially envisaged.
This obviously does not meet all expectations and does not sort out or solve all problems, but at least allows us to move forward.
I truly hope it will nevertheless be viewed as a concrete step in the right direction, and will keep you posted of developments in due course.
On 20 November 2001 from Leon Kukkuk to Stephen Kinloch:
Dear Stephen,
I am not getting any response regarding the sort of timetable for payment of local salaries or audit, but have decided to spend the rest of the year in Huambo.
Please keep me up to date with what is happening. The tel. system in Huambo appears to continue to be less than reliable but I can be contacted through WFP radioroom or OCHA as alternatives should it be necessary.
I would very much appreciate your assistance in this regard.
Have a good holiday season + Christmas, etc.
On 26 November 2002 from Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk:
Thanks for your message. And apologies for my delay in responding to you.
Salaries for local staff (based on table initially submitted by them) have been approved and are being processed for payment. The issue of a formal audit is still being followed up with UNOPS New York.
Unfortunately, for reasons beyond my control, I am no longer authorized to be in touch with you formally on behalf of UNDP, so please do not consider this message as official communication, but as a personal and informal message.
Best wishes to you too.
On 24 January 2002 the last meaningful correspondence with UNDP from Leon Kukkuk to Francisco de Almeida:
We are in receipt of your letter of 22 January 2002 and it has been distributed to some of the staff. We are looking forward to have the considerable ill feeling and confusion related to this project cleared once and for all.
. . .
In addition I would like to request that you stay directly in contact with me. Working through intermediaries and Carlos Gomes, who is working in Kaála, creates a lot of extra work and confusion. If it is the case that UNDP no longer wants to talk to me or that I am persona non grata or responsible for the current problems, the correct procedure would be to motivate this decision by way of the available documentation. Until such a time, I have been responsible for the project and am now responsible to find a solution to its problems. This is a decision taken amongst ourselves and will remain the case until we decide otherwise.
As you may be well aware, I have tried my utmost to find a solution in an agreeable and open manner through maintaining good relations with UNDP in the face of threats, insults, disrespect and gross incompetence on their part. In over three years we have made no progress or received any meaningful responses. If UNDP cannot respond in a like manner, one becomes inclined to believe that perhaps they have something to hide. This is unsuitable behaviour for a public agency that depends for its survival on contributions of our money. I sincerely hope the present circumstances will not continue indefinitely.
It has continued indefinitely.
Over the intervening years my understanding of corruption also increased dramatically. Corrupt practices are invariably very complex, deliberately so, confusion is a key element in how they function and even if they can be unravelled, a wealth of technical jargon makes it difficult to recount the process in a manner that can be readily understood. I am now more aware of how scams are hidden behind a veneer of legitimacy, with legally enforceable contracts, carefully designed to fit into the cracks between different agencies, institutions and governments, even the cracks between national and international law. I now know how accountability is spread so thinly as to be virtually meaningless, which incidentally, combined with complex and overlapping bureaucratic systems, also provides the required opacity for these scams to function. Deniability, or potential deniability, remains the primary motivation informing key decisions at all levels. I now know how the strange audit procedures within the UN system encourage rather than prevent corruption. In looking forward to an audit at UNDP, which never happened, I did not then realise that I was looking forward to process that is used to cover up crimes, not to expose them.
For a long time I naively believed that all I needed to do was to make UNDP aware of how much harm their behaviour was causing and then they would stop. It was too late for me by the time I understood the need for scapegoats in scams and that in this project I was to be that scapegoat. There was no concern about what would happen to the local staff, they were not even considered as human beings. As I embarked in 2002 on a series of interviews explaining the circumstances of this UNDP scam, I immediately found myself under attack by UNDP as Francisco de Almeida reacted thus (and I quote from one of his own documents):
“In a live interview I informed Mr. Mario Vaz from Radio Ecclésia and the listeners of the 12 o’clock news journal that the allegations made by Mr Leon Kukkuk did not correspond to the truth. I clarified the following:
If there was misappropriation of funds, Mr Leon Kukkuk in his capacity of former RUTEC Programme Manager would be the best person to provide any clarification on this manner;”
I am indeed the best person to provide this clarification and have since complied with this request in writing my book, a book that incidentally is the only thing that stands today between myself and me being on the receiving end of accusations and suspicion of corruption. To date nobody from the United Nations System or from UNDP has responded to the conclusions drawn in that book. There may be a case to be made for defamation. It is not a case that can be made easily, by one individual pitted against a corrupt and powerful organisation.
The last official reaction from UNDP comes in the form of a statement issued on 13 January 2002, by Erick de Mul, at the time the UNDP Resident Representative in Angola. Acknowledging the difficulties that we had suffered over so many years and guaranteeing that “our office has pledged to do everything since the end of 2000 to find a solution to this difficult situation,” he then proceeds to deny any wrongdoing, stating instead:
“However, as you know UNDP did not have any direct responsibility in the execution and implementation of the (project) in the province of Huambo. The responsibility of UNDP is limited to the formulation and financing of the project.”
With this statement whatever little respect I may ever have had for Erick de Mul (and it was never very much) disappeared along with the last vestiges of whatever confidence I may have had in UNDP or any of its staff. In searching for any precedence to this sort of argument, I almost immediately stumbled on the names of what is generally considered the vilest criminals of the twentieth century, who tried to use a similar argument and did not get away with it.
There is no reason why UNDP should get away with it.
Stephen Kinloch, you may be dismayed to find that you are being identified and named. It is nothing personal. Neither you nor any of your colleagues mean anything to me as individuals. It is simply a matter of your names having surfaced in an issue with which I am concerned. I am fully entitled to use those names in this context and to use them again if they crop up again in any other context. I make no apologies for that. Everybody that I have named still work for the United Nations, some have even been promoted, most are no longer in Angola. I was the one left behind, trying to cope, alone, with the shambles created by UNDP.
Nevertheless, I am not even picking only on UNDP. The Danish Refugee Council (examples here and here), Medicines sans Frontières, Medicines du Monde and DAPP are all currently under my spotlight.
UNDP may already be quite good at this but they still have a lot to learn from the Danish Refugee Council on how to use fear, insult and intimidation as a management tool. UNDP might comfortably stumble along in its own little bubble; it is yet to achieve the same obliviousness to its surroundings as do MSF. UNDP might be endemically corrupt, its scams however pale into small-scale, amateurish insignificance compared to those of DAPP, who send out criminal gangs to dominate entire countries.
I am concerned with the role of the entire International Community, whose members enter into my home, Africa, only long enough to make a mess, destroying not only my life but the lives of everybody around me, and then disappear.
This makes us go hungry, it makes us fight wars with one another, and it makes us indulge in our own corruption. We suffer from AIDS, TB and Malaria and our children die in vast numbers. There is definitely a case for severe potential liability, including for any related claims, proceedings, damages, injuries, liabilities, losses, costs, and expenses.
Are you prepared to make that case?
Sunday 7 October 2007
Is the noose finally tightening?
UNDP has shown remarkable skill at avoiding scrutiny of its activities over the last decade or so.
Anecdotal evidence of UNDP as corrupt and inept circulated fairly extensively but was never followed up for various reasons. Everybody just knew that they were inept and corrupt, but nobody was allowed to talk about it.
The very few voices of concern more or less shouted into a void of indifference.
Even as calls for reform of the United Nations became more urgent from the beginning of the decade onwards, this concentrated more on the UN Secretariat as well as reform of the outdated structures such as the Security Council.
UNDP continued blissfully with making grandiose promises of all the wonderful things that they were doing and are going to do. Efforts by a very small number of people pointing out that they were not doing any of these things and had no intention of doing any of them invariably fell on deaf ears. Or rather on ears that were concerned somewhere else. Each time it appeared as if attention might shift to UNDP, something else more urgent cropped up. For a while the scandal surrounding Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank, dominated the discourse surrounding the unaccountability of International Institutions.
But if UNDP seriously believed that they will remain outside of the limelight indefinitely – it is possible that they may have believed such a thing, considering the extent to which they are stuck within their own little bubble – recent developments demonstrate just how wrong they are.
The small trickle of publicly available information has turned in the last few months into a torrent.
The IO Watch website claims: “Articles and allegations raise problems in various UNDP country offices, many of them going back for years.”
The current issues include North Korea, Burma, Cambodia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Rwanda, Russia, Ivory Coast, DRC, Afghanistan, Somalia, Philippines.
It is by no means the entire list. The real crimes are still to be exposed.
At the IO Watch site we are told: “They involve disregard for rules, intrigues, punishment of whistle-blowers, improper staffing, weak audits, selling improper travel documents, and assisting diamond-dealing and other dubious involvements in war-torn or struggling countries. At UNDP headquarters, allegations involve a meaningless transparency policy, poor governance in a compliant UNDP Executive Board, UNDP management refusal to supply audit reports to that board, inadequate internal audit work, manipulation of Internet blogs, belligerent top leadership, stonewalling on major issues, serious financial management control problems, and rejection of established UN policies and an insistence on an independent operational status.”
A survey in 2004 of staff integrity produced surprisingly negative comments on UN leadership and the management culture. Concerns have overwhelmingly come to focus on UNDP.
Perhaps the most central elements of this UNDP situation can be found in serious troubles uncovered in the UNDP office in North Korea in early 2007, which led Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to call for a “world-wide audit of all programmes and funds.”
Trouble started when Artjon Shkurtaj, UNDP’s Chief of Operations and Security in North Korea (2004-2006) witnessed a range of UNDP abuses such as the funnelling of hard cash to the rogue regime of Kim Jong Il. He reported the issues to his superiors at UNDP. He was told not to make trouble. Finally Shkurtaj blew the whistle outside UNDP. UNDP then sacked him.
Fortunately, the UN has made provision for such situations. Kofi Annan had set up an Ethics Office, housed in the Secretariat and reporting to the secretary-general. Among other things, the Ethics Office is tasked to protect whistleblowers from retaliation.
So Shkurtaj took his case to the UN Ethics Office protesting that he had been sacked in retaliation for his whistle-blowing.
There, the ethics director, Robert Benson, a Canadian, finally produced a confidential memo addressed to the head of UNDP, Administrator Kemal Dervis, and copied to Ban and a number of others. He saw grounds that “a prima facie case had been established” that UNDP was punishing Shkurtaj for his whistle blowing. Mentioning “independent and corroborative information” for his finding, Benson supported Shkurtaj. UNDP officials denied this, saying that he was on a short-term contract that had simply expired.
By now the promised “world-wide audit of all programmes and funds,” after many delays, had shrunk to become only a single audit of the North Korea office.
On 01 June 2007 UNDP issued a statement regarding the preliminary audit report on UN operations in North Korea saying:
“UNDP will be transmitting a formal management response to the ACABQ shortly. UNDP would welcome a continuation of the audit process, including a visit by the UNBOA to DPRK. UNDP looks forward to the final audit report.”
This audit itself was stonewalled, but did manage to find violations of UNDP regulations. Eventually this was tacitly acknowledged, then swept under the carpet by the UNDP management. In a letter sent to UNDP, Mark Wallace, the US State Department ambassador at the UN for management and reform, wrote that the auditors’ testimony shows it is “impossible” for the agency to verify whether its funds “have actually been used for bona fide development purposes or if the DPRK [North Korea] has converted such funds for its own illicit purposes.”
Paradoxically enough, neither Wallace nor the U.S. government were allowed copies of the audits, which are considered “management tools” by UNDP and not even available to the governments that finance the organization.
It also turns out that UNDP, which has no ethics office of its own, is refusing to recognize the jurisdiction of the UN Secretariat’s Ethics Office, promising instead that they will be making their own arrangements for a “complementary external review” that would cover both its North Korea operations and Shkurtaj’s allegations.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon discussed all of this with UNDP Administrator Kemal Dervis, but none of the substance of these discussions is publicly available. Kemal Dervis has also not held a press conference since December 2006. He is simply not available to provide some sort of clarity on what is going on.
On 11 September 2007 the International Herald Tribune reported that:
“UNDP and other specialized UN agencies intend to meet later this month to try to define standards for whistle-blowers, since the entities contend they do not fall under UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's ethics office.”
It is a remarkable feat of arrogance on the side of these agencies to believe that it is up to them to determine, by themselves, under what jurisdiction they want to fall. UNDP did not bring up this point when the Ethics Office was created in 2005. They did not even mention it when they became aware that this office was investigating one of their decisions. It only became an issue when this office made a decision that they did not like.
The IO Watch website suggests that “UNDP is, for most practical purposes, morphing from a development agency into a species of highly privileged rogue state - operating, it seems, outside any jurisdiction.”
Notwithstanding all the talk about jurisdiction, it still remains a fact that the concept of “investigations” within the UN system should also be taken with a pinch of salt.
In an article “The lies from within,” Francis Montil, former Deputy Director of the United Nations' internal investigation agency, OIOS says:
"The culture" is one in which "the hypocrite, the liar, the fraudster, the nepotist and the dilettante is more likely to survive and progress than the average 'thinking' reasonable man or woman".
"The oil-for-food scandal taught them nothing," says Montil, who believes the fraud and corruption in the 2005 tsunami reconstruction period will come back to haunt the UN, which has willfully ignored all the warning signs.
A lot more pressure needs to be applied if a UN agency, especially the so-called principle agency of the system is to be held truly accountable.
The Government Accountability Project (GAP) wrote a letter on 03 October 2007 in this regard to;
Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary General
The United Nations
New York, New York
Dear Mr. Secretary General:
As you may be aware, in 2005, the Government Accountability Project (GAP) provided technical assistance to the Office of the Under Secretary for Management at the United Nations in its efforts to improve internal oversight and transparency. When the Secretary-General issued the bulletin entitled “Protection against retaliation for reporting misconduct and for cooperating with duly authorized audits or investigations” (SGB/2005/21) on December 19, 2005, GAP publicly praised the United Nations for applying best practices in whistleblower protection. However, since that time, serious concerns have arisen regarding the effective implementation of the policy.
We were deeply dismayed to learn of the treatment of Artjon Shkurtaj, a whistleblower who was retaliated against by UNDP management after disclosing misconduct in the UN office in North Korea. The Washington Post (“Reprisal Indicated in a U.N. Program, August 21, 2007)” reported that the UN Development Programme refused a request from the UN Ethics Office to submit to an investigation of Mr. Shkurtaj’s disclosures.
Instead, Kemal Dervis, Administrator of UNDP, announced that he would name candidates for an ad hoc panel to investigate the matter, effectively asserting that UNDP will define its own separate ethical standard. At GAP, we are surprised and troubled to learn that UN Programmes apparently can opt out of the whistleblower protection policy and reject Ethics Office findings.
This ad hoc decision-making comes, unfortunately, as no surprise to those who have watched the reform process at the United Nations closely. In their wisdom, the members of the Redesign Panel on the United Nations System of Administration of Justice anticipated the “confusion” that would surround the scope of the rulings of the Ethics Office and, calling its functions “[A]n essential component of the reform of the Organization,” urged the Secretary General to clarify its jurisdiction more than a year ago.
We would appreciate your written clarification of the basis upon which a troubled progamme, such as UNDP, can be allowed to avoid independent scrutiny of the propriety of its conduct.
Mr. Secretary General, we wish to second the appeal of the Redesign Panel; we ask that you respond positively and urgently apply the rulings of the Ethics Office to the UN Funds and Programmes. The “UN Delivering as One” initiative cannot be achieved with each unit applying a different set of ethical standards, nor can “One UN” be implemented at the country level if led by a UNDP that insists on its own institutional autonomy in the face of General Assembly resolutions.
To remove all controversy and place the United Nations firmly on the road to reform, we appeal to you, Mr. Secretary General, to invoke your authority to oblige the United Nations system to abide by a single code of ethics and to address immediately the plight of those staff members who sought to protect the mission of the United Nations and instead exposed themselves to injustice and retaliation at the hands of unscrupulous actors.
We look forward to your response and wish to take this opportunity to assure you of our highest consideration.
Very truly yours,
Beatrice Edwards
International Program Director
Government Accountablity Project
One can only hope that they receive a response.
Anecdotal evidence of UNDP as corrupt and inept circulated fairly extensively but was never followed up for various reasons. Everybody just knew that they were inept and corrupt, but nobody was allowed to talk about it.
The very few voices of concern more or less shouted into a void of indifference.
Even as calls for reform of the United Nations became more urgent from the beginning of the decade onwards, this concentrated more on the UN Secretariat as well as reform of the outdated structures such as the Security Council.
UNDP continued blissfully with making grandiose promises of all the wonderful things that they were doing and are going to do. Efforts by a very small number of people pointing out that they were not doing any of these things and had no intention of doing any of them invariably fell on deaf ears. Or rather on ears that were concerned somewhere else. Each time it appeared as if attention might shift to UNDP, something else more urgent cropped up. For a while the scandal surrounding Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank, dominated the discourse surrounding the unaccountability of International Institutions.
But if UNDP seriously believed that they will remain outside of the limelight indefinitely – it is possible that they may have believed such a thing, considering the extent to which they are stuck within their own little bubble – recent developments demonstrate just how wrong they are.
The small trickle of publicly available information has turned in the last few months into a torrent.
The IO Watch website claims: “Articles and allegations raise problems in various UNDP country offices, many of them going back for years.”
The current issues include North Korea, Burma, Cambodia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Rwanda, Russia, Ivory Coast, DRC, Afghanistan, Somalia, Philippines.
It is by no means the entire list. The real crimes are still to be exposed.
At the IO Watch site we are told: “They involve disregard for rules, intrigues, punishment of whistle-blowers, improper staffing, weak audits, selling improper travel documents, and assisting diamond-dealing and other dubious involvements in war-torn or struggling countries. At UNDP headquarters, allegations involve a meaningless transparency policy, poor governance in a compliant UNDP Executive Board, UNDP management refusal to supply audit reports to that board, inadequate internal audit work, manipulation of Internet blogs, belligerent top leadership, stonewalling on major issues, serious financial management control problems, and rejection of established UN policies and an insistence on an independent operational status.”
A survey in 2004 of staff integrity produced surprisingly negative comments on UN leadership and the management culture. Concerns have overwhelmingly come to focus on UNDP.
Perhaps the most central elements of this UNDP situation can be found in serious troubles uncovered in the UNDP office in North Korea in early 2007, which led Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to call for a “world-wide audit of all programmes and funds.”
Trouble started when Artjon Shkurtaj, UNDP’s Chief of Operations and Security in North Korea (2004-2006) witnessed a range of UNDP abuses such as the funnelling of hard cash to the rogue regime of Kim Jong Il. He reported the issues to his superiors at UNDP. He was told not to make trouble. Finally Shkurtaj blew the whistle outside UNDP. UNDP then sacked him.
Fortunately, the UN has made provision for such situations. Kofi Annan had set up an Ethics Office, housed in the Secretariat and reporting to the secretary-general. Among other things, the Ethics Office is tasked to protect whistleblowers from retaliation.
So Shkurtaj took his case to the UN Ethics Office protesting that he had been sacked in retaliation for his whistle-blowing.
There, the ethics director, Robert Benson, a Canadian, finally produced a confidential memo addressed to the head of UNDP, Administrator Kemal Dervis, and copied to Ban and a number of others. He saw grounds that “a prima facie case had been established” that UNDP was punishing Shkurtaj for his whistle blowing. Mentioning “independent and corroborative information” for his finding, Benson supported Shkurtaj. UNDP officials denied this, saying that he was on a short-term contract that had simply expired.
By now the promised “world-wide audit of all programmes and funds,” after many delays, had shrunk to become only a single audit of the North Korea office.
On 01 June 2007 UNDP issued a statement regarding the preliminary audit report on UN operations in North Korea saying:
“UNDP will be transmitting a formal management response to the ACABQ shortly. UNDP would welcome a continuation of the audit process, including a visit by the UNBOA to DPRK. UNDP looks forward to the final audit report.”
This audit itself was stonewalled, but did manage to find violations of UNDP regulations. Eventually this was tacitly acknowledged, then swept under the carpet by the UNDP management. In a letter sent to UNDP, Mark Wallace, the US State Department ambassador at the UN for management and reform, wrote that the auditors’ testimony shows it is “impossible” for the agency to verify whether its funds “have actually been used for bona fide development purposes or if the DPRK [North Korea] has converted such funds for its own illicit purposes.”
Paradoxically enough, neither Wallace nor the U.S. government were allowed copies of the audits, which are considered “management tools” by UNDP and not even available to the governments that finance the organization.
It also turns out that UNDP, which has no ethics office of its own, is refusing to recognize the jurisdiction of the UN Secretariat’s Ethics Office, promising instead that they will be making their own arrangements for a “complementary external review” that would cover both its North Korea operations and Shkurtaj’s allegations.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon discussed all of this with UNDP Administrator Kemal Dervis, but none of the substance of these discussions is publicly available. Kemal Dervis has also not held a press conference since December 2006. He is simply not available to provide some sort of clarity on what is going on.
On 11 September 2007 the International Herald Tribune reported that:
“UNDP and other specialized UN agencies intend to meet later this month to try to define standards for whistle-blowers, since the entities contend they do not fall under UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's ethics office.”
It is a remarkable feat of arrogance on the side of these agencies to believe that it is up to them to determine, by themselves, under what jurisdiction they want to fall. UNDP did not bring up this point when the Ethics Office was created in 2005. They did not even mention it when they became aware that this office was investigating one of their decisions. It only became an issue when this office made a decision that they did not like.
The IO Watch website suggests that “UNDP is, for most practical purposes, morphing from a development agency into a species of highly privileged rogue state - operating, it seems, outside any jurisdiction.”
Notwithstanding all the talk about jurisdiction, it still remains a fact that the concept of “investigations” within the UN system should also be taken with a pinch of salt.
In an article “The lies from within,” Francis Montil, former Deputy Director of the United Nations' internal investigation agency, OIOS says:
"The culture" is one in which "the hypocrite, the liar, the fraudster, the nepotist and the dilettante is more likely to survive and progress than the average 'thinking' reasonable man or woman".
"The oil-for-food scandal taught them nothing," says Montil, who believes the fraud and corruption in the 2005 tsunami reconstruction period will come back to haunt the UN, which has willfully ignored all the warning signs.
A lot more pressure needs to be applied if a UN agency, especially the so-called principle agency of the system is to be held truly accountable.
The Government Accountability Project (GAP) wrote a letter on 03 October 2007 in this regard to;
Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary General
The United Nations
New York, New York
Dear Mr. Secretary General:
As you may be aware, in 2005, the Government Accountability Project (GAP) provided technical assistance to the Office of the Under Secretary for Management at the United Nations in its efforts to improve internal oversight and transparency. When the Secretary-General issued the bulletin entitled “Protection against retaliation for reporting misconduct and for cooperating with duly authorized audits or investigations” (SGB/2005/21) on December 19, 2005, GAP publicly praised the United Nations for applying best practices in whistleblower protection. However, since that time, serious concerns have arisen regarding the effective implementation of the policy.
We were deeply dismayed to learn of the treatment of Artjon Shkurtaj, a whistleblower who was retaliated against by UNDP management after disclosing misconduct in the UN office in North Korea. The Washington Post (“Reprisal Indicated in a U.N. Program, August 21, 2007)” reported that the UN Development Programme refused a request from the UN Ethics Office to submit to an investigation of Mr. Shkurtaj’s disclosures.
Instead, Kemal Dervis, Administrator of UNDP, announced that he would name candidates for an ad hoc panel to investigate the matter, effectively asserting that UNDP will define its own separate ethical standard. At GAP, we are surprised and troubled to learn that UN Programmes apparently can opt out of the whistleblower protection policy and reject Ethics Office findings.
This ad hoc decision-making comes, unfortunately, as no surprise to those who have watched the reform process at the United Nations closely. In their wisdom, the members of the Redesign Panel on the United Nations System of Administration of Justice anticipated the “confusion” that would surround the scope of the rulings of the Ethics Office and, calling its functions “[A]n essential component of the reform of the Organization,” urged the Secretary General to clarify its jurisdiction more than a year ago.
We would appreciate your written clarification of the basis upon which a troubled progamme, such as UNDP, can be allowed to avoid independent scrutiny of the propriety of its conduct.
Mr. Secretary General, we wish to second the appeal of the Redesign Panel; we ask that you respond positively and urgently apply the rulings of the Ethics Office to the UN Funds and Programmes. The “UN Delivering as One” initiative cannot be achieved with each unit applying a different set of ethical standards, nor can “One UN” be implemented at the country level if led by a UNDP that insists on its own institutional autonomy in the face of General Assembly resolutions.
To remove all controversy and place the United Nations firmly on the road to reform, we appeal to you, Mr. Secretary General, to invoke your authority to oblige the United Nations system to abide by a single code of ethics and to address immediately the plight of those staff members who sought to protect the mission of the United Nations and instead exposed themselves to injustice and retaliation at the hands of unscrupulous actors.
We look forward to your response and wish to take this opportunity to assure you of our highest consideration.
Very truly yours,
Beatrice Edwards
International Program Director
Government Accountablity Project
One can only hope that they receive a response.
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