Letters to Gabriella

Being Rude to Somebody

2010-04-03T23:29:00.000-07:00

Over the years I have had a number of reactions to my book.

Most of them are good.

The strangest reaction of them all by far, from a Zambian friend, who, without availing herself of the tedium of getting the facts or reading the book, dismissed the whole saga as me “being rude to somebody.”

This person also has some very definite ideas as to who is responsible for dealing with the destructive effects of corruption on Africans; “Somebody has to do it.” Or rather as I was told “it is not your place to do it.”

Generally feedback that I get is quite good, if sometimes a bit odd. Here are two recent ones:

“Thank you for showing me that there're people like you in this world. Hope everything is going well for you!!”

“Kind of remind me of Mel Gibson in "Year of Living Dangerously." Hope it's not that dangerous for you!”

Sreeram Chaulia provides a quick summary in “Angola: Empire of the Humanitarians:”

“Where did the UN Trust Funds money go, if not to local communities of Angola? 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.”

Then out of the blue some unexpected feedback via Skype:

[23/03/2010 07:48:59] [name-removed] :

Leon

I had dealings with John Dommett at Rutec late 90s

What I have read from you seems about right, but there is more.

If you know what I am talking about I will hear from you

[23/03/2010 08:04:22] Leon Kukkuk: tell me more i can be contacted at [name@place.com] We did speak once on the phone I remember and then when I called you back a day later you had already been dismissed

[28/03/2010 13:25:00] [name-removed]: I wasn’t dismissed I got too close to what you have exposed The money via Brazil?

[28/03/2010 13:36:17] Leon Kukkuk: which money via brazil? I am not aware of that?

[28/03/2010 13:46:26] Leon Kukkuk: Can you send me more information? There were many things I was never able to get to the bottom of. The project in Huambo avoided all audits. Someone who took over at rutec and apparently had an audit claimed to have found nothing wrong but refused to let me see the audit report.

[28/03/2010 13:46:57] Leon Kukkuk: The project in Huambo avoided all audits.

[28/03/2010 13:47:12] Leon Kukkuk: UN audits

[28/03/2010 14:02:44] [name-removed]: All I remember, bearing in mind it is about 10 years now, was Dommet let it slip that the money from UNDP went via Brasil and was skimmed there (about 1/3). Also that you had money diverted to Caribbean by Rutec and only pocket money sent to Huambo. I was due to take your pocket money on my visit but I got out as Dommet suspected I was snooping and became more secretive with Buswe Yafele and MWU

The truly disturbing fact is that many of the same criminals responsible for this are still working at UNDP. It makes one wonder who exactly is responsible for getting rid of them.

Bitter and twisted old men

2007-12-01T07:06:00.000-08:00

The Laurel and Hardy of the Development world, messrs. Kemal Dervis and Ad Melkert has sent a very clear message as to exactly what they think of Office of the Under Secretary for Management at the United Nations in its efforts to improve internal oversight and transparency.
On 19 December 2005 when the Secretary-General issued the bulletin “Protection against retaliation for reporting misconduct and for cooperating with duly authorized audits or investigations” (SGB/2005/21), it seemed as if the United Nations was finally on track in applying common sense best practices in whistleblower protection.
However, since that time, UNDP senior management has made it apparent that they believe quite clearly that they can opt out of the whistleblower protection policy and reject Ethics Office findings, thus causing serious concerns regarding the effective implementation of the policy.
In a letter to the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, the Government Accountability Project (GAP) expressed these concerns:
“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.”
Instead of Ban Ki-moon using his authority to point out to the UNDP management that the bulletin (SGB/2005/21) was issued in accordance with a General Assembly instruction to apply to the whole of the UN system, he allowed UNDP to come up with its own set of rules.
UNDP promptly instructed their feather weight Legal Support Office to come up with an Updated “UNDP Legal Framework For Addressing Non-Compliance With Un Standards Of Conduct” dated 20 September 2007.
GAP responded in some detail to this amateurish piece of nonsense but failed to reiterate clearly enough that above all else it is a document that is functionally illegal.
The one issue that is particularly revealing of the prevailing mentality of UNDP’s top management is contained in “Section 2 - Scope of Application” specifically point “2.2 - To Whom The Present Document Does Not Apply.”
It goes on to state that “6. The present document does not apply to:” and then excluding all seconded staff members, independent contractors, employees under Service Contracts, interns, volunteers, employees without a UNDP letter of appointment, independent contractors under Special Service Agreements and some locally recruited staff.
In other words, excluding exactly the sort of people most likely to raise concerns. Only regular staff can rely on any sort of protection. As a rule regular staff at UNDP only become regular staff once they have amply demonstrated that they are compliant and unlikely to complain.
The report also imposes restrictions on external disclosures, in favour of disclosure directly to the Administrator, thus turning this person into judge, jury, prosecutor, defended and executioner all in one.
It also promotes the fallacy that the Director of the Office of Audit and Performance Review (OAPR) would actually and impartially investigate reports of wrongdoing.
I have no experience of this office doing any such a thing – ever.
As part of its pious promises the report suggests that:
“27. In the event that the staff member fears retribution or retaliation as a consequence of reporting to his or her supervisors, he or she should report the matter to OAPR (by email: hotline@undp.org ; or by telephone: UNDP fraud hotline voicemail system: ((Worldwide)) +l 212 906 5050).
30. Except when an allegation is made anonymously, the individual reporting the allegations will receive an acknowledgement from the office to which the allegations were reported.”
Therefore I wrote to this office. The least I could hope for was an acknowledgement from the office that they had received my correspondence, as promised:
From: Leon Kukkuk Sent: 26 November 2007 09:02To: 'hotline@undp.org'Cc: 'Ellen Gardner'; 'matthew.lee@innercitypress.com'Subject: FW: [Fwd: Defamatory use of online service: http://www.publishedauthors.net/leonkukkuk/events.html]
Failure by UNDP to adequately address the habit of its staff to lie, threaten and deceive.
Dear Madam/Sir,
Please refer to the message from Stephen Kinloch at the end of this correspondence.
I had responded to Stephen Kinloch in substantial detail regarding the issues that he had raised and requested clarification regarding the action he intends taking.
More than a year has now passed since his threat of “severe measures” and he still has neither followed up on this nor provided an explanation for his threats. A brief promise of a much belated OIOS investigation also failed to produce the slightest hint of a possible solution.
This is an issue that remains relevant for the following reasons:
· The actions taken against me by UNDP staff has been devastating and the consequences are ongoing to the present day.
· The same criminals that I had identified as involved in fraud remain employed with UNDP and continue to fail to adhere to the “highest standards of efficiency, competence and integrity.”
· Fraud and corruption within UNDP remain systemic, systematic and co-ordinated. Management at all levels continue to act in the best interest of the criminals employed at the organisation. As things stand at the moment the only way to deal with UNDP is to make public at every opportunity the nature and extent of criminality within the organisation and to continuously inform the public and donors about the real motivations behind UNDP management decisions.
Even though I believe the making of threats to be grossly inappropriate behaviour by international civil servants, I nevertheless expect them to either follow through on these threats or provide an explanation or apology for having made them.
Stephen Kinloch has done neither.
UNDP has provided no explanation for this behaviour by one of its managers.
I do not consider the fact that UNDP employs cowards and condone cowardly behaviour as sufficient justification for this attitude.
Could I request you to please correct the present state of affairs?
Best Wishes.
Leon Kukkuk
-------- Mensagem Original --------
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 Devlopment 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
To date no acknowledgement had been received from this office. Makes one wonder what they think of their own rules, or more pertinently, of people who have the audacity to complain.
The Purpose of the “UNDP Legal Framework For Addressing Non-Compliance With Un Standards Of Conduct” has absolutely nothing to do with dispensing justice.
It is simply a roundabout way for UNDP management to declare that at UNDP there will be no justice –ever.
Management will continue to lie, delay, intimidate and threaten.
If this does not work then, quite simply, the feather weight Legal Support Office will be co-opted to come up with yet another new set of “rules.”
At UNDP the management has obviously sat down and done a cost/benefit analysis.
They realised that no matter how embarrassing their stonewalling tactics are, how much it harms their credibility, it is still preferable to allowing the full extent and scope of UNDP dysfunction to become public.
Consider “Section 4 - Prohibition of Retaliation against Outside Parties:”
“50. Any retaliatory measures (including threats) against a contractor or its employees, agents or representatives, or any other individual engaged in dealings with UNDP because such person has reported allegations of wrongdoing by a staff member will be considered misconduct that, if established, will lead to administrative and/or disciplinary action.”
Imagine the following, very typical, scenario:
You are a senior manager at UNDP, in charge of some outpost somewhere about which you know absolutely nothing and in whose culture you have no interest whatsoever.
For a number of months you had designed all manner of convoluted and complicated programmes and projects. They all involve a staggering number of UN agencies, NGO’s, businesses and government departments. Their complexity belies the fact that accounting and audit procedures are either non-existent or at best inadequate. A labyrinth of duplicate and often contradictory reporting procedures quickly create even more confusion. None of the senior managers have any clarity with regard to their mandates or responsibilities. Lies, delays and obfuscation further prevent anybody from asking too many questions. One or two compliant local staff members with political connections keep nosey local politicians at bay, either through intimidation or by paying them off.
You are convinced that nobody will notice the steady steam of public funds flowing into your bank account in Panama. Neither will they notice the number of sub-contracts issued to companies and NGO’s that just happen to belong to your wife, family or close friends.
Granted things do not always run smoothly.
In 2005 the UNDP administrator, the very sympathetic and supportive Mark Malloch Brown, departed suddenly to go and hold the hand of his friend Kofi Annan, embroiled in the Oil-for-Food scandal. Much is being made about the fact that Mr. Brown is being replaced by a real development professional, Kemal Dervis.
Real development priorities may prove somewhat problematic for your own carefully constructed projects, in which you had invested so much effort.
Then, no sooner had Kemal Dervis indicated that at UNDP it is business as usual when the impetuous new Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, promised an independent review of all Programmes and Funds.
Fortunately even this potential threat soon passed as the independent review was reduced to only an audit of North Korea before dissipating altogether.
Imagine now that out of the blue there appears some UNV or independent contractor asking all manner of pertinent and impertinent questions.
Do you:
a.) Graciously refrain from taking any retaliatory action against this individual since you are kindly requested to do so by the “UNDP Legal Framework For Addressing Non-Compliance With UN Standards Of Conduct” or
b.) Retaliate against this individual since the same “UNDP Legal Framework For Addressing Non-Compliance With UN Standards Of Conduct” makes it quite clear that this individual has no protection or recourse under UNDP rules?

Been reading your Blog on UNDP

2007-10-12T02:10:00.000-07:00

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.

Any Response Yet?

2007-10-10T05:36:00.000-07:00

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?

Is the noose finally tightening?

2007-10-07T22:20:00.000-07:00

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.

How the UN system, specifically UNDP and UNOPS respond to requests for audits

2007-09-19T22:18:00.000-07:00

An e-mail by Francisco de Almeida (Assistant Resident Representative UNDP Angola) to Maria Teresa Felix (Programme Officer UNDP Angola) on 12 December 2000:
For the inclusion of the RUTEC project in the audit of our office, mr. Stan asked us to prepare an informative note about the antecedents and major problems related to the RUTEC project.
When could you give this note to Stan???
On the bases of your note Mr Stan will prepare the justification for the inclusion of RUTEC in our audit plan.
Thanks Francisco.

A letter, dated 27 December 2000, that Zoraida Mesa had sent to James Curry, Director of the Office for Audit and Performance Appraisal, UNDP, New York:
This letter is being sent in request of an audit for UNDP Angola. You will find attached justification, from both Programs and Operations, for this audit.
As you will note in the justification for the RUTEC contract Programs has stated that the key issue to be addressed is the lack of information to justify the 1.65 million US dollars recorded by UNOPS as total expenditure for activities related to the NEX project no ANG/96/B01. Clarity is sought on this issue through the audit to enable the preparation of the report of the CO being prepared for the government and donors and in order that recommendations are developed for UNDP and UNOPS to regularise the situation. . .

Amongst the recommendations she concluded:
Only a formal audit could conceivably raise these questions with UNOPS, RUTEC and any other interested parties in a manner that would help clarify them within the framework of the report that the CO needs to prepare for the government and donors on the CRP Trust Fund. The audit would have to elucidate these issues in a way that enables them to make recommendations to UNDP and UNOPS on how to regularise the situation.

Memorandum from James W. Currie, Director, Office of Audit and Performance Review to Bisrat Aklilu, Deputy Executive Director, UNOPS, 14 January 2001

Subject: Project “Capacity Building for the Community Rehabilitation and National Reconciliation Programme” (ANG 96/B01)

This communication relates to issues which the UNDP Resident Representative in Angola has raised with me concerning the UNOPS implementation relating to The Contract UNOPS signed with a South African company by the name of RUTEC under the above mentioned project. The main issues he raises is the general lack of information to justify the use of the funds under The Contract. Specifically, he alleges that:

· It appears that the decision that led to the award of the contract to RUTEC was made by UNOPS, as the implementing agent for this activity, only, without any involvement of the government (the Ministry of Planning), as the executing agent;
· There is lack of information as to the results that may have been achieved or the manner in which the funds under the contract have so far been spent;
· There is no record of a monitoring visit by UNOPS;
· On-site monitoring by RUTEC seems to have been limited to a one-day mission undertaken in 2000, with no substantitive technical support provided for ongoing activities and no mission report on follow-up;
· Apart from the Contract document itself, there is no detailed description of the activity to be undertaken by RUTEC; therefore, there are no specific goals to determine payment of the different instalments of the agreed fees, and;
· There is no final report indicating results achieved and lessons learned.

I would appreciate it if you could look into the above and inform me as to the facts of this matter, with any supporting material as you may deem appropriate.

Response of Bisrat Aklilu (UNOPS) to James W. Currie (OAPR), 13 February 2001

Subject: Project “Capacity Building for the Community Rehabilitation and National Reconciliation Programme” (ANG 96/B01)

This is in response to your Memorandum of 14 January 2001 pertaining to queries and concerns raised on the above mentioned subject by the UNDP Resident Representative in Angola. We believe that before addressing the allegations, a short presentation of the project and the relevant background would help to understand our role in this project.

In September 1996, UNDP submitted to UNOPS a draft Project Document ANG 96/005 “Establishment of a Pilot Community Production Centre in Huambo” with a request to provide implementation services.
The project was to be funded through a UNDP Trust Fund and private sector funding as well (Coca-Cola, Equator Bank). For lack of interest from some Donors, the project never materialised.

In November 1996, UNDP submitted a different Project Document ANG 96/003 “Establishment of a Pilot Community Centre in Huambo” The minutes of the Local Project Appraisal Committee as well as a letter from the Provincial Government of Angola formalising concession of land premises for the Centre in Huambo was also provided. Officials of the Government of Angola were fully involved. UNOPS was requested to act as Executing Agency for the project.
The Project Document identified RUTEC as a pre-selected contractor, which was fully endorsed by the Government. It is UNOPS understanding that RUTEC was pre-selected in accordance with the applicable UNDP procurement rules and procedures.

In December 1996, UNOPS presented this project ANG/96/003 to its Project Acceptance Committee (PAC) which was fully endorsed for execution by UNOPS. The minute of the PAC is attaché herewith.

Due to security reasons and funding issues, activities of the project were initiated only in February 1998. A contract was issued to RUTEC as pre-selected entity, following PRAC recommendations and CPO approval early April 1998.

In March 1998, we received an official communication from the UNDP Country Office stating “please note that RUTEC, though conceived initially as a stand alone project, was made an integral part of the ANG/96/100-Community Rehabilitation Project. It is a subcontract to be financed from the output budget: ANG/96/B01 budget line 2101- Trust Fund for the CRP.”
Due to budgetary constraints, UNDP asked UNOPS to charge the RUTEC contract to this project.
Later on, at UNDP request, RUTEC’s contract was charged against 2 project budgets, ANG/96/B01 and ANG/96/100.

It is UNOPS understanding that all project documents received from UNDP Luanda have followed UNDP’s internal procedures including adequate consultation with the host government and hence we believe that the Government of Angola, and the Ministry of Planning in particular, has endorsed them. It is difficult to conceive that UNOPS would have taken a unilateral decision pertaining to the award of the RUTEC’s contract or any other major project action unless it is in full conformity with the provisions and arrangements specified in the project document which has been signed by both UNDP and the Government.

With respect to project results and achievements of the RUTEC contract, these are documented in the quarterly reports from RUTEC as well as recent expressions of interest from the Government to raise additional funds for this centre.
With regards to the manner in which UNOPS as executing agency, has spent the funds, all financial records have been maintained according to the applicable procedures and are available for verification. An overall audit of Angola Programme was conducted in February 2000.

‘Monitoring visits were made by UNOPS project staff in Angola and can be verified. All invoices from RUTEC were certified by our then Co-ordinator and Programme Manager, Mr Lawrence Doczy and Mr. José Saléma who have visited the Centre regularly. Mr. Dimitri Samaras, the SPMO and myself on mission from New York, visited the site in March 1998 and 1999.’

Contrary to what is alleged by the new UNDP Resident Representative, on site monitoring by RUTEC was not limited to a one-day mission undertaken in 2000. Mr. Dommett, the RUTEC Programme Manager in South Africa visited Angola many times and met with UNOPS staff, UNDP Country Office and Government Representatives. He and his staff in Huambo have met on many occasions to assess project progress. Periodic reports, from which results can be seen, were submitted to UNDP by RUTEC itself. A final report is being prepared by RUTEC.

The statement of work which was to be undertaken by RUTEC is attached to the contract signed with RUTEC and appropriate specific goals and milestones are fully described in the project document as well as the contract.

We are at your disposal to further review this case, if you deem it necessary.

(Note: None of the attachments mentioned in the letter were in fact attached.)

Note Prepared by Leon Kukkuk and distributed to UNDP, UNOPS and Bereket Sletzion, UNDP auditor:

Project: ‘Capacity Building for the Community Rehabilitation and National Reconstruction Programme’
(ANG/96/B01 –BL 2101)

Notes as general background information:

Documents can refer to several project codes:

ANG 96/003
ANG 96/ 003/ 01/31
ANG 96/001
ANG 96/100
ANG 96/005
ANG 96/B01

These all refer to the same project, which was by all appearances implemented without finalising the codes, project documents and clarifying the roles of the partners.
This project is also generally referred to at UNDP as the ‘RUTEC Project’, at UNOPS and RUTEC as ‘The Huambo Community Production Centre’ and in Huambo as ‘Microform’ (This is a local initiative to bypass the problems created by the vague arrangements between UNDP, UNOPS and RUTEC).

There are no signed Project Documents, although there are various related versions of such. Requests over a period of two years to obtain these were unsuccessful. Apparently the Project Document for this project is the CRP programme document.

The project went through a planning phase from late 1995 – beginning 1998.
(The impression that is gained from the correspondence in the files is that implementation was hampered by a lack of funding and by a lack of clarity regarding what RUTEC can provide. Although much of the correspondence does not appear to be available, it seems as though a decision was taken late in 1997 to implement the project before these issues were finalised and that the original contract was signed with RUTEC, without resolving its weaknesses.)
In February 1998 UNOPS signed The Contract with RUTEC.
RUTEC started setting up the project in Huambo in the beginning of June 1998.
Contract amendment 1 brought the original termination date of 31 May 2000 forward to 31 January 2000 based on a starting date of September 1998.
After several delays and a suspension of activities for two months the centre started functioning at the end of January 2000.
Considering that The Contract allows for an 18-month pilot phase, the termination should have been 31 July 2000. This was never contractually or otherwise confirmed.

The Provincial Government requested an extension of the project on the argument that it can perform a key function in the reconstruction of the province.

UNOPS had no presence in Angola since the end of January 2000. Several meetings held with UNDP and CRP suggested that the future of the project shall be decided during a tripartite review. This was originally planned for May 2000, then July 2000. The only review that was eventually held was as part of the Country Co-operation assessment on 21/22 October 2000.

The SDRR (P) visited Huambo on 04 November 2000 where the issues were presented to him. To date no feedback has been received.

On 10 November 2000 the Project Manager received a copy of a letter from UNOPS to RUTEC, dated 01 November 2000, instructing the centre to be closed down and the transfer of custody to UNDP of all assets. This was forwarded to UNDP asking for instructions regarding the action that need to be taken. To date no instructions in this regard had been received.

Due to lack of action on the part of UNOPS and RUTEC, and indecision by UNDP, in defining a specific course of action for the project, the staff in Huambo was faced with three options after July 2000:
Abandon the project along with all ongoing activities, a considerable investment in equipment, vehicles and goodwill.
Place everything in storage pending a solution.
Continue as is best possible pending a solution.

The first option was considered too extreme and the second not practically possible due to local expectations and the absence of sufficient funds. The last option was decided upon after consultation with the staff, CRP (Huambo) and local Government officials.

Local authorities advised that only the Minister of Planning is authorised to close projects of this type. Correspondence between the CRP and the Provincial Government suggested that an extension of the project shall be sought with additional funding as well as replicating the project in another province by December 2000. This is reflected in the CRP Phase II Project Document.

This situation was explained in some detail to the CR team and UNDP representatives on 21 October 2000. The Provincial Governor also specifically requested the CR team to find support for the project.

Due to further lack of action it became practically impossible to continue with the project and, again after due consultation with the staff, CRP (Huambo) and local Government officials, as well as informing UNDP, the centre was closed down on 31 January 2001 amidst substantial chaos and ill feeling.

Immediate consequences for me were the fact that I was confined to my house for two days by the Governor who also wrote a very strongly worded letter to the Ministry of Planning and UNDP. After discussions with him it was decided that I should come to Luanda for one week to resolve the problems of the project.

Action that need to be taken:

UNDP need to take responsibility for the project, which now rests with a private individual, which has neither the resources nor the mandate to solve any of the outstanding issues.
These issues include:
Resolution of expectations of staff, beneficiaries and Angolan Government.
Legal and satisfactory closure of the project.
Unless these issues can be resolved and unless UNDP can regain credibility, all talk of a follow up project is pointless.

Response To Issues Raised By Angola CO In Relation To Project ANG 96/B01 BL 2101 On 27 December 2000 And Memorandum To Mr James W. Currie From Mr Bisrat Aklilu Dated 13 February 2001 (Prepared by Leon Kukkuk on behalf of UNDP)

Issue:
The activity undertaken under this contract was an integral part of the CRP (NEX) project, but was never included in the project evaluation that took place in 1999, or in related NEX audits, thus leaving everyone in the dark regarding its operational performance.
The government executing agency of the CRP, namely, the Ministry of Planning, has verbally stated that it never had any hand in the decisions that led to the award of The Contract and is not aware of any results that may have been achieved or the manner in which the 1.65 million dollars have so far been spent.

UNOPS Response: The copy of the minutes of the PAC is attached. (It is not attached)

UNDP Response: There are no signed copies of Project Document, PAC, PRAC recommendations or CPO approval in UNDP files. Would it be possible for UNOPS to provide such items?
There are no reports from UNOPS or RUTEC itemising expenditure of the amount under the contract.

Issue:
Despite the importance of the amount of money involved, there is no record of any monitoring visit by UNOPS, and on-site monitoring by RUTEC seems to have been limited to a one-day mission undertaken in 2000, with no substantive technical support provided for ongoing activities, and no mission report on follow-up.

UNOPS Response: ‘Monitoring visits were made by UNOPS project staff in Angola and can be verified. All invoices from RUTEC were certified by our then Co-ordinator and Programme Manager, Mr Lawrence Doczy and Mr. José Saléma who have visited the Centre regularly. Mr. Dimitri Samaras, the SPMO and myself on mission from New York, visited the site in March 1998 and 1999.

UNDP Response: (Refer to chronology of project)

Mr Doczy never met any of the project staff from Huambo, neither in Huambo itself nor in Luanda. Attempts to meet with him in 1998 were frustrated by his illness. By October 1998 he was no longer in Angola.
The Project Manager met frequently with Mr José Saléma in Luanda. Mr. Saléma was never in Huambo during the duration of the project. Consistent requests by Claudio Lopes from UNOPS during 1999 to visit the project were turned down. The UNOPS administrator, Ms Filomena Oliveira actively discouraged any assistance by any UNOPS staff member to the project. UNOPS consistently maintained that this is not a UNOPS project but an UNDP one.
In March 1998 there was not yet any project. To date no confirmation of a UNOPS visit in March 1999 can be obtained from WFP flight manifests or from the security unit. Mr Balima visited on 30 March 1999, whilst the Project Manager was in Luanda. Whether or not UNOPS staff accompanied him on this visit remains unclear. There are no UNOPS mission reports in the files.

UNOPS Response: ‘Contrary to what is alleged by the new UNDP Resident Representative, on site monitoring by RUTEC was not limited to a one-day mission undertaken in 2000. Mr. Dommett, the RUTEC Programme Manager in South Africa visited Angola many times and met with UNOPS staff, UNDP Country Office and Government Representatives. He and his staff in Huambo have met on many occasions to assess project progress. Periodic reports, from which results can be seen, were submitted to UNDP by RUTEC itself.’

UNDP Response: In 1998 Mr John Dommett from RUTEC visited Huambo in May and then again in August, both times for two days. The Project Manager met with him in Johannesburg on two occasions. The Centre was not yet established. At no time has he ever met with any government official. (Mr. Dommett had done this in January 1996 and never again subsequently) According to Mr Dommett at the time co-operation with the government is yet undefined and need to be finalised during the course of the project.
In 1999 he met with the Project Manager in Luanda in March then in April in Johannesburg, both times for one afternoon. On 13 October 1999 he met again in Johannesburg with the Project Manager for a morning whilst the latter was in transit to Angola. The Project Manager was told that under no circumstances should he provide any financial information to UNDP as per Teresa Felix’s request. Since then there has been no contact. Project progress was never discussed. Meetings have generally been acrimonious discussions regarding lack of assistance and lack of funds. This can be supported by abundant correspondence. Correspondence also exists to demonstrate that TA (Technical Assistance) passed from Huambo to RUTEC and not the other way around. RUTEC themselves are unaware of John Dommett’s whereabouts since late 1999.
Buzwe Yafele, as acting CEO of RUTEC, visited the project in Huambo on 31 March 2000 during his stay in Angola from 29 March – 03 April 2000. Soon after his return to South Africa he was dismissed from RUTEC. This was perhaps in part because he had failed to secure funding from the project to buy 10 tons of wheat flour and to arrange an extension of the contract with UNOPS. No mission report was produced by RUTEC.
No periodic reports submitted by RUTEC to UNDP exist in the files. (See Annex IV)

Issue:
Apart from The Contract document itself; there is no detailed description of the activity to be undertaken by RUTEC, and no specific goals to determine payment of the different instalments of the agreed fees.

UNOPS response: The statement of work which was to be undertaken by RUTEC is attached to the contract signed with RUTEC and appropriate specific goals and milestones are fully described in the project document as well as The Contract.

UNDP Response: There is no project document attached to the contract.
The problem with the contract is that the item ‘Management of Centre for Two Months’ is not clarified. Only $227 000.00 had been made available to the project by RUTEC over a period of two years. This included all costs for construction, set-up and 18 months running costs.
Of $1 505 000.00 that RUTEC had received from UNOPS there is no explanation of how $1 041 000.00 had been spent. (In contravention with points 2.4 and 2.5 and Article 12 of contract no C-971794.)
An exchange of letters between the current MD of RUTEC, Mr Boris Kamstra, from October 2000 and between Teresa Felix and same in February and March 2001 and myself shows that RUTEC is unable to justify any technical contribution to the project or how funds had been spent under the contract. Mr. Kamstra was for several months after his employment unaware that RUTEC had a UN contract to implement a project in Angola.
Abundant communication between RUTEC and myself exists regarding lack of financial support to the project. This was communicated to Mr Michel Balima at UNDP on 19 September 1998, 10 February 1999, 03 September 1999 and 12 November 1999.

In addition it is interesting to note the following:

Local staff was employed on 01 July 1998 and consistently received their salaries two to three months in arrears until November 1999. Salaries were then paid on time until January 2000. The Project Manager supported staff salaries in February and March 2000 before it fell into arrears again.
RUTEC had provided no insurance, employment or health benefits to any staff as was required by the contract. (Article 5 General Conditions for UNOPS Contracts for Professional Services.)
The Project Manager was employed on 28 May 1998 and received his first salary on 23 March 1999. A promise to provide him with cash allowance in Huambo was honoured once in September 1999. His salary is currently 16 months in arrears until July 2000. To date he has not received any payment in this regard in spite of continued requests. Add to this the fact that he has now spent an additional 9 months dealing with the problems of this project, without any contract or salary, which means that he has now been two years without an income.
By the end of 1999 he had personally invested $10 000.00 in the project.

Issue:
Although by all indications the activity is considered by UNOPS as having been satisfactorily completed (the last instalment of The Contract fee has been paid) there is not a final report indicating results achieved and lessons learned.

UNDP Response: RUTEC is unaware of what the project activities were and cannot justify any expenditure under the contract.
A draft final report will be prepared by Leon Kukkuk, as Consultant for CRP, following recommendations by the audit team.

Issue:
The Country review mission did not focus on this project. However, following a visit to the project site in Huambo, the mission separately raised many questions with the CO regarding the nature of the undertaking between UNOPS, UNDP and RUTEC.

UNDP Response: During the visit to Huambo on 21/22 October 2000 the following issues were raised:

With Leon Kukkuk, Project Manager:

The project was not monitored by UNOPS or UNDP. RUTEC made only $227 000.00 of the $1.65 million available to the project, provided no logistical support or technical assistance.
UNOPS in Luanda claimed that it was not their project.
Substantial correspondence to UNDP failed to elicit any responses. Specifically a letter from UNOPS to RUTEC (01 November 2000) ordering the cessation of all activities under the contract and referring the project staff to the UN Resident Co-ordinator in Luanda for the practical and logistical aspects of such a transfer to the custody of UNDP, received no response. This left project staff with the responsibility for a substantial investment but no mandate or contractual framework within which to act. This was complicated by the fact that the Provincial Government was requesting that further funds be mobilised for the project.
Staff is working without salaries or contracts pending a solution.

With Paulo Kassoma, Provincial Governor:

The project is potentially one of the most important in the province, yet is treated like a second or third-rate project. It has no proper infrastructure, the reports submitted to the provincial government does not reflect the commitment of $1.65 million made by the international community.
‘We don’t want to see money or sign cheques, we only want to see that promises made to us are honoured.’

With Fernando Arroyo, OCHA Field Advisor:

The project is one of the most visible activities of the CRP in the province, yet receives no logistical or financial support.

Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 15:27:44 +0200
From: "Bereket Sletzion"
To: Herbert Haraldsson
CC: M Ali-Kparah , Stanislaus Nkwain , Teresa felix
Subject: (no subject)

Subject: UNDP ANG - Project "Capacity Building For the Community Rehabilitation and National Reconciliation Programme..." (ANG/96/B01).

Background: The project was executed by UNOPS and a South African company (RUTEC) was selected to implement activities whose funds were US$ 1.65 million. Regarding this arrangement, the following events should be noted.

1) The former UNDP-ANG RR requested for an audit to be carried out for the above mentioned project through a letter to Mr. J. Currie on 27 December 2000. In her letter she raised issues and concerns justifying her request for an audit.
2) Mr. Currie requested UNOPS/HQs to provide clarification on the issues raised by the RR. (refer to his memo of 14 January 2001).
3)UNOPS/HQs responded to Mr. Currie through a memo on 13 February 2001 generally disagreeing with the concerns raised by the RR. This memo was also sent by UNOPS/HQs to the CO.

As a follow up, the audit discussed the issue with the management of UNDP-ANG during the management audit carried out in April/May this year. As a result of the discussion, the following were decided:

1) The CO felt that an audit was still necessary. However, an evaluation of the project would be carried out before finalizing the arrangements for an audit mission.
2) A response to the UNOPS/HQs memo of 13 February 2001 would be sent to UNOPS/HQs and copied to OAPR. (At the exit of the mission a draft was already prepared and a copy is with the audit).

OAPR is therefore to wait for the results of the evaluation; renewed request for the audit; the COs response to the UNOPS memo of 13 Feb. and the reaction of UNOPS.

If you require more clarification, kindly let me know.

Regards.

An e-mail sent by Dimitri Samaras (UNOPS) to Herbert Behrstock (UNDP Angola) on 12 March 2001:
. . .Lots of money have been spent in Angola and wasted for no reason. . . or reasons beyond my imagination.
We have invested but never capitalised on it. Cost benefit analysis is indeed needed.
I do believe that this office needs a Central Management and Coordination Unit which will implement/ execute and supervise all operational activities.
. . . Regarding RUTEC, we have responded to the auditors and I am sending you a copy as well as their reaction.
I will provide at anytime all infos related to the said activity.

From Michele Falavigna to Dimitri Samaras on 13 April 2001:
Thank you Dimitri for transmitting the enclosed fax from RUTEC on ANG/96/003.
I believe that the sense of frustration about this project goes beyond not receiving the final report. There are questions in the CO on the appropriate use by RUTEC of UNDP funds and fulfilment of the contract obligations. That’s (why), the Audit which is expected to start in Angola next week has been asked to look into the matter. Definitively, this project has projected a negative image that is important to address. I was wondering whether UNOPS has any suggestion of how the failure of this project can be addressed apart from drawing lessons for the future.
Thank you.

The fax attached went like this:

Subject: ANG 96/003 Huambo Development Centre

Dear Sir,
I am in receipt of your fax of 10 April 2001.
I appreciate the frustration you are experiencing in receiving the final report. It is not that we have not been paying attention to deliver this report, but we have been out of contact with the centre in Huambo. Having recently joined RUTEC I have no knowledge of the project and it would be senseless for me to provide you with a report as all I can report on is the instructions from yourself. It is almost impossible to receive any instructions from the centre if we are out of contact with them, we have investigated the possibility of chartering an aircraft to physically take us there. However, no charter company will fly to the area. The only flights in and out are those of the World Food Programme and the military. To get on any of these we need to talk to the centre. This gives some idea of the dilemma we find ourselves in.
Your instruction to close the centre was forwarded to the centre. We were informed that this was not in accordance with the procedure required and there was a concern for the centre staff’s safety should they unilaterally close the centre. I informed them that with no further payments from UNOPS for the contract it would not be possible to provide them with additional funding. In the light of this the contract was closed. It appears that the centre took it upon themselves to continue operating whilst trying to secure funds for its future. This was a decision taken at that level with no instructions to do so from RUTEC and as such any liabilities or credit cannot be accounted to RUTEC.
We have recently re-established with the centre manager and are in the process of receiving the material for a final report, which we will forward to you as soon as we complied it into a report.
As I do not have the fax numbers of Mr Behrstock and Mr Almeida please could you forward a copy of this fax to them.
I apologise for the intolerable delay in finalising this issue.
Yours Faithfully

(Note: There is something interesting that need to be noted with regard to this fax. The “facts” represented in it are of course all fabrications. RUTEC had made no attempt, and had no intention of making any such an attempt, to travel to Huambo, by chartered plane or otherwise, and they did not need to since the Project Manager was in touch with them almost daily wanting to know what they had done with $1.65 million that they had received. The thing that is interesting is that the very same people, who had received this very large sum of money to implement a project in Huambo, now claimed that they were unable to report on how they had in fact implemented that project since they have no contact with this project and does not know how to get to it.)

On 23 April 2001 an e-mail written by Dimitri Samaras (UNOPS) to Michele Falavigna (UNDP New York):
Many thanks Michele .
One thing which I am sure of is that UNDP participated fully in the selection and the award of the contract to RUTEC and the funds were used for services that are spelled out in the RUTEC’s contract.
In addition, it is my understanding that the activities undertaken were so positive that the Local authorities were to mobilize additional funding.
I can assure you that the Production Centre’s initiative had met the full endorsement of many actors and in particular the Funder i.e. UNDP and the Recipient i.e. the Government of Angola.
So to question it today, as it was done by UNDP new Leadership was indeed not a plus in terms of projecting a positive image but rather was felt as some kind of “ retaliation” for which UNOPS is not part of.
Mr James Curry, Director of OAPR submitted to UNOPS on 14 January 2001 a memo in which he referred to some allegations made by the Resident Representative. That kind of attitude is indeed not conducive to constructive understanding of what went well and wrong.
Nevertheless we have answered his queries and concerns in a memo dated 13 February 2001. A copy of this memo will be sent to all so that you get a better idea of the situation (where we started, how we started and which role we played). Talking about failures is already taking a strong position which I believe at this juncture is premature.
I am scheduling a visit to Angola next month with the Division Chief and would hopefully be able to clarify the misunderstandings that are occurring.
I hope we can joint efforts and try to overcome perhaps things that are beyond our control.
I am waiting as well as a positive reaction from the CO since I have many times offered my services to regularize situations which can be with of course a good will.
MANY THANKS.
I stand ready to bring any contribution required from our end and serve the noble cause that we are serving after all i.e. the development one.

And then the issue became forgotten until one Erick de Mul came up with the following justification in a letter to the staff, dated 13 January 2002, and addressed also to the Director of Planning Dr. Henrique Barbosa, the Governor, Engo Paulo Kassoma and the Minister of Planning, Ana Dias Lourenço:
Subject: Your requests of 21 December 2001 and 09 January 2002

The office of the United Nations Development Programme in Angola has the honour to present its respectful compliments to the collective of the ex-staff of the project RUTEC-Microform in Huambo and makes reference to the issue mentioned in the title line.

In this respect we would like to inform you that we take note of your concerns manifested by way of your requests, and to guarantee you that our office has pledged to do everything since the end of 2000 to find a solution to this difficult situation.
However, as you know UNDP did not have any direct responsibility in the execution and implementation of the RUTEC-Microform project in the province of Huambo. The responsibility of UNDP is limited to the formulation and financing of the project[1], the execution of the same having been entrusted to the United Nations Office for Project Services “UNOPS,” that had in turn contracted the private South African company “RUTEC” as implementing agent for the project.
. . .
(Signed by Erick de Mul as Resident Representative UNDP)

One wonders if it should be noted that Graig N. Murphy, in his pseudo-factual book “UNDP: Abetter Way?” describes UNDP as a “model of efficiency.”
[1] Underlined by Author.

A World of Development Experience

2007-09-19T05:09:00.000-07:00

This is a slightly revised and shortened extract from my book:

A lot had been by know been said about UNDP and I may have hinted here and there that perhaps it was a somewhat haphazard and unprofessional organisation. Perhaps it would be best to stand back a little and have a look at what other people were saying about them. We shall also not forget to have a look at what they have to say about themselves.
It is important to keep in mind that the international humanitarian and development aid system is omnipresent in the Third World. Even if a development issue is purely local, there is a strong likelihood that an international organisation would be involved in addressing the issue. The poorer the country and the weaker its Government is, the more important the role and the power of International Development organisations. In many African countries, for instance, Development is to all practical extents, managed by the UNDP Resident Representative and The World Bank delegation.
In Luanda the United Nations occupies an eight-story building, with some agencies, such as WFP, UNHCR and OCHA occupying their own premises. For local communities, this international presence is often seen as much part of the problem as of the solution.
Soon after my arrival in Luanda, on 21 February 2001, I was given the report from the UNDP Country Review undertaken from 16 October to 03 November 2000. This was the same group of people that had visited our centre on 21 and 22 October 2000. United Nations Agencies work in countries within the legal context of a thing called the Country Co-operation Framework (CCF), renewed periodically, which defines what they are supposed to do.
In Angola the UNDP CCF ran from 1997-2000 and included the following programmes:
Theme 1: Direct Post Conflict Activities, Theme 2: Community Rehabilitation and National Reconciliation and, Theme 3: Economic Management, Institutional Reform and Administrative Modernisation (Governance).
These were all ambitious objectives, especially for an organisation, that, from my own experience, was still battling with the modalities and mechanics of internal communication, unable to use the excellent postal service provided by WFP or even to realise that they have to respond to letters.
Just to make things clear to those not familiar with these sorts of things. The above mentioned themes are considered to be programmes. Projects are then designed to comply with the thematic objectives of these programmes. Our project, for example, was part of Theme 2: Community Rehabilitation and National Reconciliation.
What did the report have to say about UNDP’s endeavours to do these things?
Their overall assessment makes the following statement:

“While these programmes were well conceived, relevant and important, they all suffered major problems for a number of reasons, and lasting results are very few. Principally, the success of immediate post-conflict activities depends on a secure environment, which was not (and has yet to be) fully achieved in Angola. The contribution by these programmes towards the achievement and consolidation of more peaceful conditions was limited, if any.
Yet other factors influenced the implementation of these activities:
Poor design of the actual projects, without adequate consultations with and ownership by the government institutions involved;
Weak programme management by UNDP and inadequate accountability by its institutional partners, especially UNOPS;
Inadequate transfer of technical and management expertise by external consultants to local staff; and
Inability by UNDP to quickly modify programmes to reflect the changing political and security environment. This includes the absence of an effective monitoring and evaluation system.”

Time and again one would come up against arguments from UNDP that they do not have funds to do many of the things that they had promised to do. Yet the country review stated quite clearly, that, with $65.9 million available:

“UNDP had thus a very good starting point for the implementation of its CCF. However, as this Country Review will show, most programmes and projects suffered serious problems during implementation, some had to be terminated, and there are very few sustainable results at the end of the CCF. The big paradox is therefore: How could these seemingly good programmes produce so meagre results? Could this have been avoided? And what lessons can UNDP and the government draw from these experiences?”

This report mentions that it was not the first time that an evaluation reported on large scale failures by UNDP. The previous review, in 1997, identified a list of five weaknesses in the previous CCF. These included poor quality of national staff, high turnover of senior staff, lack of coherent and flexible strategy in the face of emergencies, no capacity in co-ordination and implementation of reintegration and rehabilitation roles and that the absence of translation facility delayed approval of project documents, but then goes on to say that:
“Unfortunately, only the last point has resulted in a remedial measure, while all other “lessons learned” did not lead to any substantial change – and indeed were thus not “learned” by UNDP in Angola. Similarly, practically none of the objectives and success indicators of the CCF were achieved during this period. The minimum requirement for the next CCF is that it establish more realistic immediate objectives for UNDP interventions and measurable performance indicators that permit evaluation and periodic assessment.”

I personally would suggest, on the point of establishing more realistic immediate objectives for UNDP, that they stick to the basics such as to train their staff to be able to communicate with their colleagues from one office to another, that they learn to respond to correspondence in a meaningful way and, very advanced for UNDP, but important to learn anyway, that failures are a necessary part of the learning process providing the reasons for failures are adequately addressed and become part of the lessons learned and the procurement of solutions.
I could thoroughly agree, from personal experience, with the report’s observation that:
“It seems equally evident that UNDP did not thoroughly scrutinize the proposed programmes and projects, before accepting funding.”

The report then proceeds to observe that:
“The relationship between UNDP and government partners was not good at the central level during 1997-98.”

“Both NGO’s and private sector partners interviewed by the CR Team indicated that their experience with UNDP in the execution of projects to have been negative.”

“Experience in project execution through UNOPS has also appeared to be costly, bureaucratic and slow. . . Partners have questioned the quality of technical assistance particularly that recruited through UNOPS. The CR Team has not been able to find performance evaluations nor information on targets, indicators and outputs, which could corroborate these opinions.”

“Bureaucratic procedures have been employed by both UNDP and National partners to protect themselves and to provide excuses for inaction.”

Regarding the CRP specifically, the report mentions:
“. . . the impact on communities targeted by programming in this sector has by and large been negative. High expectations have not been met, promised funding to community projects has been slow to deliver at best, and often not arrived. Local level leaders and NGO partners have lost credibility with their constituencies.”

The report concludes with a number of observations and recommendations:
“The above analysis uncovered serious weaknesses in the way the Country Office has functioned . . . “ (more or less a repetition of previous reasons)

“. . . the CO[1] did not adequately support the implementation of these projects in a timely and efficient fashion but was rather seen as slow, bureaucratic and without transparency.”

“UNDP must also ensure that the inputs, especially the international advisors and consultants that are funded, are relevant, efficient, effective and client oriented.”

“The CR Team strongly believes that UNDP should not handle any more cost sharing, Trust Funds and other funds on behalf of other partners, before it has drastically improved its own performance and efficiency.”[2]

This last point is particularly important and cause for some concern. Why would an organisation not be required to handle things such as cost sharing, Trust Funds and other funds on behalf of other partners? Could it perhaps be that they cannot adequately explain how the money entrusted to them are spent? And if they cannot, or are unwilling, to explain how it is spent, where are they in fact spending it? We are not talking about small change here but about several tens of millions of Dollars, in other words several large suitcases worth of money, if one was to convert it into cash. One is inclined to believe that it would be difficult to loose track of such an amount of money unless a deliberate effort was made to do so.
The UNDP website states:
“UNDP helps developing countries attract and use aid effectively. In all our activities, we promote the protection of human rights. . .”

If you had a few million lying around in spare cash, would you give it to UNDP to use effectively?
On the other hand, one could accept that the Country Review was done by a bunch of vindictive individuals more concerned with doing harm to UNDP than with constructive comments. Nevertheless, in a technical meeting on the Country Review held on 02 March 2001, chaired by the Deputy minister of Planning, it highlighted the fact that in general the Government agreed with the assessment of the CR team.
Arve Ofstad, Director of the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway, previously the UNDP Resident Representative in Sri Lanka, and team leader for the Angola Country Review, later wrote a paper entitled; ”When Peace And Development Both Fail – The UN System In Angola.” These are his observations:
“The UN development agencies, here exemplified by UNDP, has a mixed experience in Angola, in periods playing a very traditional “developmentalist” role, and in other periods taking on innovative roles much earlier that elsewhere. In the initial phase, before and up to the peace accord in 1991 and the elections in 1992, UNDP was very active in “filling and bridging the gaps” to the humanitarian and political spheres. UNDP was in fact providing support to the coordination of humanitarian assistance prior to establishment of DHA[3] in 1993, and contributed funding to the first elections. While this was early compared to UNDP in most other countries, this could have been partly inspired by the transition and elections in Namibia just before.
However, when the war broke out in 1993, UNDP suspended its regular development programme, as a traditional development agency would do. But during the follow-up from the 1994 peace accord, UNDP again changed its position, and provided heavy support to this follow-up through the organisation with the government of a major Round Table with donors in Brussels in 1995. During this period the new UNDP Resident Representative combined this role with the position of WFP Country Director and being the Humanitarian Aid Co-ordinator as well, and he worked very closely with the SRSG[4]. This seemed to be the “golden period” for UN cooperation, and their support to a peace process.
In the following “in-between” phase, UNDP nevertheless failed almost completely. It turned incapable to make good use of these opportunities, while it also suffered from deteriorating external environment. Despite a good and relevant programme and substantial donor support, very few sustainable results were obtained. This can partly be explained by the weak leadership of another Res. Rep, who did not combine the post as Humanitarian Aid Co-ordinator. In a study of “in-between” phases, the poor performance by UNDP, and the lessons and experiences from this, will require special attention. As the 1998-99 war broke out, UNDP again had to reduce its activities as was unable to redirect its efforts to respond to the changing environment. With the arrival a new Res. Rep again in 2000 and a new combination of the role as Humanitarian Aid Co-ordinator, UNDP seemed to enter a period of slow recovery, also reflecting the new “in-between” phase.
Finally, the humanitarian agencies played a relatively limited role within the UN system before 1991, despite the continuous war with refugees and displacements since independence. However, with the large-scale “war of the cities” in 1993-94, the humanitarian assistance increased rapidly, especially as food aid through WFP. DHA took over direct coordination, most of the period handled by WFP as Humanitarian Aid Co-ordinator. Since then, the humanitarian agencies have maintained a strong role, especially during the periods of large-scale war. In the “in-between” phases the humanitarian agencies have tried to move into support for resettlement and recovery, but not very successfully.
Interestingly, the humanitarian agencies in Angola seem to have had a positive relationship with the political and security presence of the UN, as opposed to the strained relationship that has been the case in many other countries. Especially during the 1993-94 war, the humanitarian agencies through their presence in the field throughout the country were supporting the SRSG in providing information and situation analyses, and in maintaining contacts with the UNITA side. During the 1994-95 “golden period” of UN coordination, the humanitarian agencies were also part of this. Since 1995, however, it seems that the humanitarian agencies have been acting more separately on their own, while expanding their activities, rather than integrating with the developmental parts of the system. During and after the 1998-99 war, the humanitarian agencies have no longer been able to provide assistance to the population in unsafe and in UNITA areas, which is a major breach of basic humanitarian principles.”

Although it is a bit of an aside, Arve Ofstad also asks and then answers some interesting questions:
“Is the volume of aid contributing to or subsidising the war efforts? – This has apparently been seen as an issue in Angola, where regular aid has been limited and further reduced during periods of heavy violence, while humanitarian aid increased. But the military strength of both government and UNITA has depended on other funding sources, and has hardly been influenced by the level of aid. The humanitarian assistance has clearly provided life-saving support to large populations, and it seems unlikely that the two sides would have paid more attention to suffering civilians with less external assistance. This may require more discussion, however.
Can the content of the aid programme provide incentives for the peace process? – This is exactly what was attempted especially in the wake of the 1994 peace accord. This project is an attempt to understand why these incentives were so weak.
Will aid for reconstruction in contested areas promote peace? – Given the clear pro-government position of the UN agencies, they have worked on the assumption that re-establishing civilian administration and initiating development in (previously) contested areas would promote the peace and reconciliation process. However, it is not clear whether this assumption is correct.
What are the options and implications of aid for rehabilitation and development efforts in rebel controlled areas? – This has hardly been an option in Angola for the UN, possibly with the exception of UNICEF. Before 1992 other major donors (USA) and their NGOs were actively involved on the UNITA side, but this was primarily a political position not necessarily motivated by promoting a peace process.”

Not only was this the only person not fully positive about UNDP. In a conference called “The Struggle for Peace, Peace-building and Canadian Policy, Roundtable on Angola,” held in Ottawa, Canada on 26 November 1999, the following statements were made:
“The donor community in 1995 mounted a program as a contribution to peace building, the Brussels Round Table process. It underwrote the Lusaka peace accords with a billion dollar, to assist in community revitalization. It wanted to engage communities in national rehabilitation, as part of a peace-building process. The UN set up independent evaluation teams to look at a well conceived, inclusive program but it was left to the UNDP to implement. UNDP is one of the weakest structures in terms of administering programs. After almost 4 years, none of the rehabilitation had taken place. Proposals received in late 1995 from communities had still not been processed 4 years later. Due to poor implementation, the international community was further discredited. If implemented early and effectively, this program could have assisted in the consolidation of peace.

UNDP’s own bureaucratic systems of financial planning, reporting and monitoring - Imprecise and overlapping sets of definitions of programme and project boundaries made budgeting a difficult process for non UN personnel to understand. Government, Donors and Communities each became frustrated and impatient with programme procedures and tended to look for means to circumvent them. The use of the UN Trust Fund as a pool to finance both the programme administration, necessary office infrastructure rehabilitation, capacity building aspects of project as well as community based projects, without sufficient separation of these functions, prevented programme managers from monitoring the overall financial situation of the CRP. The problem became a serious constraint for local Government and Donors who need clear and accurate financial reporting in order to plan and carry out their functions within the CRP. The lack of transparency of reporting systems hid the fact that only a small proportion of the UN Trust Funds money was invested in community based projects.”

On their website UNDP makes the following claims:
“Accountability, Transparency, and Anti-Corruption
In an era of increasing globalisation, governments play a critical role to ensure economic competitiveness and growth, good governance and sustainable development
Accountable and effective management of public financial resources constitute some of the most fundamental responsibilities and challenges of many governments in the world, particularly those in developing countries and economies in transition. In this era of increasing globalisation of world markets and trade, public sector management and accountability have become critical elements in determining the over-all effectiveness, efficiency, and ability of governments to ensure economic competitiveness and growth, good governance and sustainable human development
The UN General Assembly Resolution A/RES/51/59 adopted on 28 January 1997 provides the basis for UNDP’s mandate in assisting development countries to fight corruption. In July 1998, the UNDP Executive Committee approved the corporate position paper, Fighting Corruption to Improve Governance to guide the organization’s work in this field. At the heart of this mandate is UNDP’s holistic approach of tackling corruption as a problem of poor governance. UNDP recognizes that minimizing corruption is critical to reduce poverty and promote social and people-centred sustainable development. UNDP’s emphasis on long-term systemic changes and the human dimensions of development, coupled with its impartiality, underscore its unique contributions in promoting good governance and public accountability and transparency.”

How did UNDP react to this report? Surely if any company or organisation receives a report that concludes that it is almost a complete failure, this would cause a mass panic amongst staff and management and, at the very least, some attempt to start correcting things. Yet, it seemed to be barely noticed by the staff at UNDP. At higher levels the reaction could perhaps be best summarised by the following example:
Michele Falavigna had produced a Back-to-the-Office report soon after his visit to Angola (in March 2001). As an aside, but of interest, was the fact that this twenty-two-page report does not once mention the two-hour meeting that I had had with him. There is nevertheless an interesting section entitled, “Working with Oil Companies.”
It goes like this;
“Collaboration between UNDP and Oil Companies (BP-Amoco, Chevron and Sonangol) has already started with a full cost-sharing project to support fisheries in Ambriz. . . . Considerable progress has been made on setting up infrastructures and equipment. . . . it was suggested to give greater visibility to the accomplishments made to date by producing articles for the national newspapers and videos for the national television. . . .
Beyond, the Ambriz project, the opportunities for increasing UNDP co-operation with oil Companies in Angola are promising. . . .
The Country Office has to pursue the matter vigorously not only because of the opportunity for resource mobilization but also because of the nature of the projects, high visibility and quick impact, which can boost UNDP image as a reliable and efficient co-management partner.”

Sterling stuff, all of it, except for the fact that the report from the Country Review team has the following to say about the very same project:
“The artesian fishing project in Ambriz is a pioneering partnership between UNDP, Equator Bank, BP-Amoco (a private sector petroleum company) and the Ministry of Fisheries.
The programme is still incomplete and the execution has been slow. The primary donor BP-Amoco indicated to the CR Team a certain disillusionment with the performance of UNDP, having expected a more professional management and better reporting. BP-Amoco indicates that reluctantly they are being drawn into a greater “hands-on” role in the project for which they feel poorly equipped as a donor. Due to poor performance in the execution of this project, UNDP risks jeopardising a future relationship with a potentially important investor/partner.”

An important objective of Michele Falavigna’s visit was in fact to close down the CRP. I can well, and with a lot of satisfaction, remember how the top management of UNDP left the office full of confidence for their meeting to do just that. A few hours later they returned, less confidant, and laughing embarrassingly. The Minister of Planning had told them in no uncertain terms that the Angolan government will make such a decision and that Angola is governed by Angolans and not by the staff of UNDP.
Likewise Mark Malloch Brown, the UNDP administrator, in other words the top person in the agency, had visited Angola in February with a view of speaking to the President, José Eduardo dos Santos, in an effort to improve relations between UNDP and the Angolan Government. In spite of not having received any response from the President’s office regarding an audience, Mr. Malloch Brown arrived anyway. After kicking his heels for a day in Luanda, a response arrived.
“The President does not meet with people at this level.” It said, indicating Jorge Chicoti, the Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs as the appropriate person to speak to.
Mr. Malloch Brown returned to New York after three days and after what was generally considered to be a humiliation. Carol Bellami, head of UNICEF, visits Angola regularly and almost invariably meets with the President. They certainly do not discuss the success of UNICEF projects since in that respect UNICEF is perhaps second only to UNDP in their capacity for failure.
Another indication that Mark Malloch Brown might erroneously have believed that UNDP is in fact doing a reasonable job in Angola could be found in a note he distributed regarding the first regular session held from 24-28 and 31 January 2000 in New York on the Extension Of The First Country Cooperation Framework For Angola. At the very least it suggests that UNDP must have been aware at least at this level that we were active and achieving results. Point three of this note, referring to the CCF from 1997-1999, says:
“The programmes achieved many positive results. Some of the notable ones are the vocational training programmes, community rehabilitation and revival of agriculture and economic livelihoods in six provinces, and capacity-building activities in the Ministries of Planning, Finance, and Civil Service. With the onset of the conflict in Angola in late-1998, and based on discussions with the Government and other partners, the reintegration and community rehabilitation programmes have been shifted to provide vocational training and micro-enterprise services for displaced people in areas with security and access. The capacity-building programmes in the national institutions continue to be relevant in view of the increased government role in humanitarian assistance coordination, and discussions with the Bretton Woods institutions to undertake comprehensive economic reforms beginning in January 2000.”

This was not exactly what the Country Review would find at the end of that same year. (In fact most of the programmes so enthusiastically endorsed by Mr. Malloch Brown did not even exist, or had existed only briefly before being closed down. One can conclude that he was at best misleading, or, more directly, lying to his boss and good friend, Kofi Annan). Another way to judge the quality of the UNDP presence in Angola is to have a look at how the donors support them. This is a bit of a tricky issue, full of real and conceptual pitfalls but we would do our best to make sense of things anyway.
In Angola the UN requests funds from donors through a mechanism called the “Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeal” usually simply referred to as the CAP. This mechanism has its origin in the wake of the UN’s poor response to the plight of the Kurds in northern Iraq, when the General Assembly in December 1991 approved resolution 46/182 designed to improve humanitarian coordination. The Department of Humanitarian Affairs[5], created as a result, established the process of consolidated appeals for major emergencies, responding to donor insistence on single requests on behalf of the entire UN system. The idea was that the UN would come up with a co-ordinated response from all its agencies to these emergencies in order to respond in an effective and coherent way. From the Angolan appeals, consisting of a series of one-page project proposals, a thorough background and lots of tables with numbers in them, it would be very difficult to deduce any form of co-ordinated effort behind it all. While the analytical rigour of current UN appeals leaves something to be desired, the response of governments to the new approach still only covers an average of 25 per cent of the UN’s requests.
There is a common misconception that donors only support issues that come to international attention through the media, the so-called media grabbing emergencies. A closer look at multilateral and bilateral funding clearly demonstrates that this is not strictly true. Donor support appears to be given primarily for strategic reasons. Then countries appear to give preferentially to former colonies, to the extent that an undemocratic formal colony can expect about twice as much from a donor as can a democratic non-former colony. Thus in Angola the major donor by far is the United States, for strategic reasons, followed by the Scandinavians, Britain and Portugal in almost equal measure. Since American Aid is almost always linked to governance issues, democracy and human rights, they almost always support organisations that promote these sorts of things. The CAP in Angola has been supported by about 50 to 70 percent of their requests on average. Countries with less strategic value such as Rwanda, Burundi and Eritrea routinely received as little as between 2 and 6 percent of their requests.
For the year 2000 the UN had requested $260 million[6] and from this only 52 Percent had been funded. The bulk of this was for WFP, receiving 52 percent. The Food and Agricultural Organisation received only 29 percent of its requirements. The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) received only 60 percent of requirements. UNFPA received 48 percent of its needs. UNHCR received 59 percent of funding for IDP protection and assistance programmes. UNICEF received 40 percent of funding. The WHO received 55 percent of requirements.
The UNDP received a paltry 3.3 percent of requirements in 2000.
In 2001 UNDP received 19.00% of requirements. In the same year WFP received 51.29% of requirements, UNICEF 53.67% of requirements, UNHCR 79.82% of requirements, WHO 8.99% and FAO 9.62%. For 2002 UNDP received 5.29% of requirements. In the same year WFP received 80.86% of requirements, UNICEF 53.63% of requirements, UNHCR 55.24% of requirements, WHO 6.86% and FAO 74.26%.[7]
One thus tends to come to the conclusion that the donors are not overly enthusiastic in supporting UNDP, the so-called principal agency of the UN system. UNDP of course would argue that this was because of the war, when emphasis was placed on humanitarian assistance. There may even be a spark of truth in that, yet fails to explain why UNDP only received 5.29% of their funding in 2002 when there no longer was a war and when their mandate had not only become important but imperative. An analysis of how UNDP revised its requirements dramatically upwards as the war came to an end and then downwards as the donors were obviously not responding, would be interesting but, alas, it is fairly technical and boring stuff and there is regrettably no place for it here. Suffice to say, the amounts that UNDP requested varied from a little more than two million to a little more than seven million, peaking at thirteen million in mid-2002, before being cut back by more than half, a far cry from the tens and even hundreds of millions of Dollars UNDP was originally set up to manage annually.
It did not take UNDP long to get into vicious circle of claiming that there are no results because they have no funds and then not getting funds because they have no results. ROAR’s, their famous “Results Orientated Annual Reports” are a perfect example of the prevailing mentality of UNDP. Every year many of the senior staff goes into apoplexy as they start to prepare these reports. After apparently huge efforts they then produce a monumental document full of goals, sub-goals, sub-sub-goals, themes, sub-themes, sub-sub-themes, tables with numbers, tables with lists of countries with little crosses marked of against a number of indicators and little dialogue boxes with all sorts of asides. Reading through all of this is an exercise in endurance and yet at the end of it the all, the important questions; what was done, how does it contribute towards development, how many peoples’ lives are better as a result and how much did it cost? remain unanswered. These reports do not contain a single measurable result. It comes across a little bit like the “baffle them with bullshit” story. Only that there is almost 200 pages of it.
UN Agencies, which we expect to have high moral values, and to occupy the moral high ground, seems to have increasing numbers of freeloaders, parasites, charlatans and impostors within their ranks. A certain illness has crept in, and the illness seems to be infectious. The UN should be mature enough to diagnose the illness, and consider what they can do to treat it, and restore the system to health, and to its proper position of the high moral ground.
Criticism of the UN has reached such a crescendo over the last few years that one finds oneself almost unable to reach through this to the real issues in this specific case. It is easy to be overly critical about the UN. It is nevertheless important to stress that one should separate the UN system, that often fail because its member states do not support it enough, from its agencies, which are largely free from this horse trading, and should be run professionally, competently and work to the highest standards.
These are not unreasonable demands. In fact the UNDP Operational manual makes the same demands:
“In the context of the Mission statement and the 2001 project for management change, UNDP staff and management have agreed on the overall values guiding the work of the organization, namely, a results orientation, integrity in all aspects of work, and respect for the diversity of staff and development partners.

To make development assistance more effective, the General Assembly decided in 1975 that UNDP activities should be seen in terms of outputs or results rather than in terms of a package input of foreign experts, fellowships and imported equipment.”

The specialist agencies of the UN are in fact doing exactly that. There are also some fine and admirable agencies such as WFP, but they are in danger of being overshadowed by the increasing number of self-interested parasitic agencies, that represent something other than the multi-lateral, not-for-profit, not self-serving, public benefit organisations that they should be.
Without wanting to demean WFP in any way, their work is not at all that difficult. All they have to do is get food to people wherever there may be a need. Logistically perhaps very difficult and even complex but conceptually easy. The real work of the UN should be within the agencies that can respond to needs in a more conceptually mature and holistic manner, identifying and solving the underlying causes for suffering, creating programmes and projects that can meaningfully intervene in the lives of people and fundamentally make things better. Without that, the work of WFP, however excellent, is meaningless really. And I have seen this many times in the faces of WFP staff as they respond time and again to the same emergencies, having to try and save the same lives again and again, seeing the same despair and realising the same humiliation, as people live their entire lives on aid with no hope for the future.
All I saw UNDP doing during my time with them was the extent to which they expanded the frontiers of incompetence, down to levels as difficult for me to comprehend, as it is to understand quantum theory.
[1] Country Office.
[2] It must be noted here that this statement was found in the draft copy of the evaluation in my possession but did not make it into the final published version.
[3] Department of Humanitarian Assistance, later OCHA.
[4] Special Representative of the Secretary General.
[5] OCHA forms part of this,
[6] About 2-3% of the British Health budget.
[7] Information from the Consolidated Inter-Agency Appeals for Angola, 2000. 2001, 2002.

Letter to James Currie, Director Office of Audit and Performance Review 15 April 2002

2007-09-19T05:03:00.000-07:00

Dear Sir,

With reference to Project ANG 96B01 BL 2101 ‘Pilot Community Production Centre Huambo Angola’ for which an audit was requested by Zoraida Mesa, Resident Representative UNDP, in December 2000.

Please find some English translations of letters that had been sent to the press, Human Rights Organisations and donors in Angola. This issue will now be resolved through the courts.

Open Letter to Erick Eduard de Mul, Resident Representative – United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Angola

Dear Sir,

Over the last few weeks we have had the privilege to read in the newspapers and hear on the radio, the UNDP promises regarding their new projects that will reduce poverty in Angola.

At the same time the project Microform – ANG 96/B01 BL 2101 – financed by UNDP and implemented in Huambo finds itself in a catastrophe without precedence. The problems related to this – lack of clarity regarding Government authorisation to implement the project, poor planning and control of funds, lack of evaluation and monitoring and a lack of knowledge of how and where almost a million dollars had been spent- was presented to UNDP from the beginning of 1999. Up to the time of this letter we have not yet received a single concrete response from UNDP of how they will solve these issues.

In January 2001 the project closed down chaotically with staff salaries already seven months in arrears and with a variety of other financial obligations. The successes that were achieved started to fail as a result of the inability of UNDP to decide the future of the project.

An audit was requested in December 2000 and all relevant documents handed over to the auditor in April 2001.

Up to date we have not received a single response. A letter dated 16 November 2001, to Stephen Kinloch, a UNDP staff member, requesting clarification of these issues, especially the seven month salary arrears that is already outstanding for more than a year, received on 26 November 2001, a very vague response with the following note:

‘For reasons beyond my control I am no longer authorised to communicate with you on behalf of UNDP. Consider this letter informal and unofficial.’

Presently we have the following questions:

· If UNDP has no capacity to assist with the basic needs of an already successful project on the ground, and to solve its management problems within a reasonable period of time, what capacity do they have to alleviate poverty that is infinitely more complex?
· If UNDP has no capacity to control the funds that they make available, even when they were advised since the beginning of 1999 that these funds are not arriving at the project, what capacity do they have to direct future funds to where they are needed?
· If UNDP has no capacity to treat staff that are already contributing towards poverty alleviation with honesty, respect and dignity what capacity do how have to treat innumerable poor with honesty, respect and dignity according to their hopes?

Concretely, what has been the contribution of more than 26 years of UNDP presence in the Angolan community? What practical and different mechanisms does UNDP have at the moment to ensure a contribution in the future?

Hoping for a quick, clear and factual response.

Huambo, Angola aos 04 de Dezembro de 2001.

Open Letter to Erick Eduard de Mul, Resident Representative – United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Angola

Dear Sir,

A letter was written in December 2001 (annexed) seeking clarification regarding UNDP’s role in Angola. The questions are very basic, legitimate organisations normally respond to these questions as a matter of routine.
We also thought that we had the right to ask UNDP questions about their activities and to receive clear and honest answers. UNDP is a public organisation that depends for its survival on voluntary donations, i.e. our money. It is not unreasonable to ask them what they do with this.

After an interview by Leon Kukkuk on radio Ecclesia, ex-director of the Project mentioned in the first letter, Francisco de Almeida responded on behalf of UNDP, also by way of radio, at the end of January 2002 and the beginning of February 2002.

(Francisco de Almeida, Assistente do Representante Residente do PNUD em Angola para Advocacia, Parceiras e Mobilização de Recursos), did not respond to the questions asked. Instead he simply claimed that the only person responsible for the problems of the project is Leon Kukkuk, as Co-coordinator of the Project in Huambo.

He also visited Huambo on 28 January 2002 to pay about U$D 33 000.00 in salary arrears that is part of about U$D 100 000.00 in financial obligations that we are attributing directly to the incompetence of UNDP. (In contrast to the claims on the radio by Francisco de Almeida in February 2002 that all outstanding debts were paid.)

During the visit he also promised that all outstanding issues (various debts, Project Director Salary and monies paid by Leon Kukkuk from his own funds towards staff salaries) will be solved by way of an audit that is already more than a year in arrears. He indicated that the audit will happen in the first quarter of 2002.

Once more he reiterated the UNDP promise, that they have been making since the beginning of 2000, that they will re-implement the project, based on a proposal by Leon Kukkuk. This new project will employ the staff from the old project.

Most of the problems that this project is suffering at the moment are caused by this promise, that UNDP had neither made any steps to achieve or had demonstrated any capacity to achieve. Circumstances are already bypassing UNDP. Leon Kukkuk, with the Provincial Government of Huambo, has already planned a new project. This project is partially financed, authorised and ready for implementation. This proposal was made by Leon Kukkuk in his private capacity with no contribution whatsoever by UNDP, in spite of their resources. UNDP still does not have the capacity to solve problems of the last four years. Angolans are already looking towards the future.

At the end of the second week of April 2002 there was still no indication of the audit that UNDP have been avoiding for more than a year now.
What is the motivation for this reluctance to have an audit?

The audit would not only have resolved the financial mismanagement of the project but would also have clarified the role of Leon Kukkuk in the project.
In the absence of this audit, by way of an e-mail on 04 April 2002, Francisco de Almeida was asked to make available all the documentation in support of his claim that Leon Kukkuk is the only person responsible for the problems of the project.

Until the date of this letter no response had been received.

The reality is that no such documents exist. On the contrary there is a wealth of documents where UNDP were advised about the project problems and UNDP simply never bothered to respond.

At the beginning of August 2001 all documents related to the project were sent to a lawyer. These are the conclusions:

· In 1996 UNDP had planned, directed and financed the project through its Economic Unit without complying with any of its internal rules or general United Nations policies regarding the type of policies that can be implemented. In addition it did not respect any of the rules regarding their agreement with the government or paid any attention to the opinions of government representatives.
· The implementation of the project was in practice illegal. UNDP treated the advice of the Project Director and Government representatives, over more than two years, to resolve the weaknesses of the project, constantly with disrespect, dishonesty and incompetence.
· UNDP did not follow their own rules for evaluation and monitoring and maintained no control over how project funds were being spent.
· They promised, and continue to promise, a new project without having the capacity to realise this promise. They have demonstrated neither the inclination nor the capacity to comply with the financial implications of this promise.
· Circumstances indicate that there is not a single person at UNDP that knows what problems they are creating for themselves or how it must be resolved.

These documents are available. Along with other documents, also available, it indicates that this project is not a special case, but a typical UNDP project.

We may conclude that in more than four years that we have been involved with UNDP we had never been treated with dignity or respect. They cannot even respond to basic questions. The probability that UNDP will resolve their own problems, which they had created, in good faith and with capacity is highly unlikely. For this reason it was decided that it would be more constructive to treat this issue through a legal process. During this process we shall return to the questions asked in the letter of 04 December 2001, amongst others.

Huambo, Angola aos 15 de Abril de 2002.

Amós David Vassouvava
António José Ernesto Camboco
Carlos Alberto Gomes
Deolindo Manuel Dungula
Emanuel Isaías Jamba Chissingue
Leon Kukkuk
Maria Helena Malaquias N´hamba

Portuguese Version of Letters

Carta Aberta para Erick Eduardo de Mul, Representante Residente – Programa das Nações Unidas para o Desenvolvimento (PNUD), Angola

Estimado Senhor,

As ultimas semanas tivemos o privilegio de ler nos jornais e ouvir na radio as promessas do PNUD sobre os seus novos projectos que vão aliviar a pobreza em Angola.

Ao mesmo tempo o projecto Microform – ANG 96/B01 BL 2101 – financiado pelo PNUD e implementado no Huambo encontra-se ainda embrulhada e numa catástrofe sem precedência. Os impedimentos ligados a este projecto - falta de esclarecimento da autorização do Governo Angolano para implementar projecto, pobre planificação e fiscalização dos fundos, falta de avaliação e monitorização e uma nebulosidade de como e onde foram gastos cerca de um milhão de dólares americanos – que foram apresentados ao PNUD desde o inicio de 1999. Ate a data de elaboração desta carta não recebemos nenhuma resposta concreta do PNUD de como será resolvido este assunto.

O projecto encontrava-se caoticamente fechado desde Janeiro de 2001 com os salários de pessoal com atraso de sete meses e com uma variedade de compromissos financeiros não pagos. Os sucessos alcançados falharam por culpa do PNUD em decidir o futuro concreto do projecto.

Foi solicitada a realização de uma auditoria em Dezembro de 2000 e todos os documentos a motivar a mesma foram entregues ao auditor em Abril de 2001.

Não ha nenhuma resposta ainda. Uma carta datada de 16 de Novembro 2001, para Stephen Kinloch, funcionário do PNUD, a pedir esclarecimento sobre o progresso destes assuntos, principalmente os salários de sete meses que já estão mais de um ano em atraso, recebia em 26 de Novembro de 2001, uma resposta muita vaga com a seguinte nota:

‘Por rações fora do meu controlo não posso mais comunicar com você em nome do PNUD. Considera esta carta informal e não oficial.’

Agora estamos com as seguintes duvidas:

Se o PNUD não tem capacidade de apoiar pequenas necessidades de um projecto já com sucesso no terreno, e resolver os problemas de gestão deste projecto dentro de um prazo razoável, qual a capacidade que tem para aliviar a pobreza no país que é infinitamente mais complexo?
Se o PNUD não tem capacidade de controlar os fundos que disponibilizou, mesmo quando foi avisado desde inicio de 1999, que estes fundos não estavam a chegar ao projecto, qual a capacidade que tem em dirigir os futuros fundos para onde existam necessidades?
Se o PNUD não tem capacidade de tratar o pessoal que já esta a contribuir para aliviar a pobreza com honestidade, respeito e dignidade, qual a capacidade que tem em considerar aos inúmeros pobres com honestidade, respeito e dignidade e de acordo as suas esperanças?

Qual foi concretamente a contribuição de mais de 26 anos de presença do PNUD na comunidade Angolana? Quais são os mecanismos práticos e diferentes que o PNUD tem agora para garantir uma melhor contribuição no futuro?

Esperando uma resposta expediente, clara e factual.

Huambo, Angola aos 04 de Dezembro de 2001.

Leon Kukkuk
Ex-Director do Projecto
ANG 96/B01 BL 2101

Carta Aberta para Erick Eduard de Mul, Representante Residente – Programa das Nações Unidas para o Desenvolvimento (PNUD), Angola

Estimado Senhor,

Em Dezembro 2001 foi escrita uma carta aberta (anexada) que pedia esclarecimento do papel do PNUD em Angola. As perguntas foram bem simples, pois as organizações legais respondem normalmente a este tipo de perguntas em forma de rotina.
Também pensamos que temos direito de pedir respostas ao PNUD sobre as suas actividades e de receber respostas claras e honestas. O PNUD é uma organização publica, que depende para sua sobrevivência as doações voluntárias, portanto, do nosso dinheiro. Não é fora da razão sabermos o que o PNUD faz com isso.

Depois uma entrevista feita pelo Leon Kukkuk a radio Eclesia, o ex-director do Projecto mencionou a primeira carta, que o Francisco de Almeida respondeu pelo PNUD, também através do radio, no final de Janeiro 2002 e no inicio do Fevereiro 2002.

O Francisco de Almeida, Assistente do Representante Residente do PNUD em Angola para Advocacia, Parceiras e Mobilização de Recursos, não respondeu as perguntas que foram feitas. Em vez disso, reclamava que a única pessoa responsável pelos problemas do projecto (Microform- Huambo ANG 96/B01- BL2101) é o Leon Kukkuk, como Coordenador do Projecto no Huambo.

Ele também visitou Huambo ao dia 28 de Janeiro de 2002 para pagar a cerca de U$D 33 000.00 dos salários em atraso que fazem parte de cerca de U$D 100 000.00 de compromissos financeiros que nos estamos a atribuir directamente a pura incompetência do PNUD (contrario das reclamações feitas pelo Francisco de Almeida no radio em Fevereiro 2002 que foram pagos todas as dividas.)

Durante a visita ele também prometeu que serão resolvidos outros assuntos ainda pendentes (varias dividas, salário do Director do Projecto e a contribuição no pagamento dos salários do pessoal feita com fundos privados do Leon Kukkuk) através duma auditoria que está já mais de um ano em atraso. Ele indicava que a auditoria pode contecer no primeiro trimestre do ano 2002.

Reiteram também a promessa do PNUD, de que deles já estão a fazer desde inicio do ano 2000, que vão reiniciar o projecto baseado na proposta elaborado pelo Leon Kukkuk. Este novo projecto vai empregar os funcionários do projecto anterior.

A maioria dos problemas que o projecto sofre actualmente foi criada por causa desta mesma promessa, pela qual o PNUD não deu nenhum passo para o alcançar, nem demonstrou capacidade para alcançar. As circunstancias estão a ultrapassar o PNUD. O Leon Kukkuk, em conjunto com o Governo da Província do Huambo, já tem elaborado um novo projecto. Este projecto encontra-se parcialmente financiado, autorizado e pronto para implementação. Esta proposta esta criada pelo Leon Kukkuk na sua própria capacidade enquanto o PNUD com todos os seus recursos não contribuiu em nada. O PNUD encontra-se ainda com incapacidade de resolver os assuntos de quatro anos atras. Os Angolanos já estão a olhar para o futuro.

No fim da segunda semana de Abril de 2002 não existia nenhuma indicação sobre a auditoria que o PNUD já esta a fugir por mais de um ano.
Qual é o motivo para esta relutância de realizar uma auditoria?

A auditoria, não só resolvia os assuntos financeiros do projecto também clarificaria o papel do Leon Kukkuk no Projecto.
Na ausência desta auditoria, foi pedido, através de um correio electrónico datado de 04 de Abril de 2002, e dirigido ao Francisco de Almeida para disponibilizar todos os documentos que prova a sua reclamação que o Leon Kukkuk é a única pessoa responsável pelos problemas do projecto.

Ate a data desta carta não foi recebida nenhuma resposta.

A realidade é que este tipo de documentos não existe. Antes pelo contrario existe bastantes documentos que atestam que PNUD foi avisado sobre os problemas do projecto e que estes (PNUD) simplesmente nunca responderam.

No inicio do Agosto de 2001, todos os documentos do projecto foram enviados para um advogado. As conclusões tomadas são as seguintes:

O PNUD tinha planificado, dirigido e financiado o projecto através da sua Unidade Económica em 1996 sem cumprir com as suas regras internas ou com as políticas gerais das Nações Unidas sobre os tipos de projecto que pretende implementar. Adicionalmente, não respeitava as regras do seu acordo com o Governo Angolano nem se importava com as opiniões dos Representantes do Governo.
Na pratica a implementação do projecto era ilegal. O PNUD tratava os avisos feitos pelo Director do Projecto e os Representantes do Governo ao longo de mais de dois anos, para corrigir as fraquezas do projecto, constantemente com desrespeito, desonestidade e incompetência.
O PNUD não cumpria com as regras de avaliação ou monitorização do projecto e não controlava como estavam a ser gasto os fundos do projecto.
Prometia, e continuava a prometer, um novo projecto sem a capacidade de realizar estas promessas. As consequências financeiras destas promessas eles não demonstravam nem inclinação nem capacidade de cumprir.
As circunstancias indicam que não ha nenhuma pessoa no PNUD que saiba qual exactamente são os problemas que deles criaram e nem como deve ser resolvido.

Estes documentos estão disponíveis. Em conjunto com outros documentos, também disponíveis, indica que este projecto não e um caso especial, mas só um projecto típico do PNUD.

Podemos concluir que em mais de quatro anos que estamos envolvidos com o PNUD, nunca fomos tratados com honestidade e respeito. Eles nem podem responder a perguntas básicas. Não é muito provável a possibilidade do PNUD em resolver os problemas, que deles próprios criaram, pela sua boa fé e capacidade. Por este razão foi decido que será mais construtivo tratar este assunto através dum processo jurídico. Ao longo deste processo voltaremos a pedir respostas as perguntas da carta de 04 de Dezembro de 2001, entre outras.

Huambo, Angola aos 15 de Abril de 2002.

Amós David Vassouvava
António José Ernesto Camboco
Carlos Alberto Gomes
Deolindo Manuel Dungula
Emanuel Isaías Jamba Chissingue
Leon Kukkuk
Maria Helena Malaquias N´hamba

How The UN System – In Collaboration With Private Business – Contributes Towards Development And The Reduction Of Poverty

2007-09-19T05:01:00.000-07:00

The following letter was written on behalf of ordinary people who find themselves on the receiving end of the efforts of the UN to improve the lives of their community.
These are people from Huambo, Angola who have suffered through more than 30 years of war, watched their city destroyed, agricultural and industrial production reduced to almost nothing and schools, health and social services disappear. They have been bombed, shot at, massacred, mutilated and displaced from their land and homes. These are arguably some of the poorest and most disadvantaged people in the world.
It aims to outline the circumstances of a project that was designed and planned by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Luanda, Angola, to be implemented by the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) through a subcontract with a private South African company RUTEC (specialists in Micro Enterprise development (rutec@iafrica.com)).
If all of this sounds very complicated, it is not nearly as complex as the subsequent consequences of this cumbersome agreement, caused by greed, corruption, mismanagement and unbelievable levels of incompetence.

It is our belief that some UN practices constitute a violation of fundamental human rights. These violations are either committed or condoned by the United Nations System, our so-called moral guardians. These events represent only one incidence, but far from being an exception, it is in all probability fairly representative of how the United Nations operate.

Background

Soon after the Lusaka Protocol at the end of 1994 (the peace agreement between the Angolan Government and the rebel forces UNITA) UNDP organised and co-ordinated a meeting in Brussels, Belgium to discuss the reconstruction of Angola. Both Jose Eduardo dos Santos, the Angolan President, and Jonas Savimbi, leader of UNITA, was present at what became known as the Brussels Round Table, as was all major donors and interested parties. The outcome of the meeting was the Community Reconstruction Programme (CRP) a sort of Marshall Plan for Angola. The International Community pledged about U$D 1.00 Billion for this programme for which a Trust Fund was set up, to be administered by UNDP. The CRP never became fully functional and none of its structures were ever fully put in place. Part of the reasons for this was the unstable and deteriorating security situation, mostly because of UNITA’s non-adherence to the Lusaka Protocol. Also, only about U$D 100.00 million of the pledged amount was ever received. Most donors preferred to channel their funding through NGO’s and grassroots organisations.

Sometime, probably late in 1995, the Economics Unit of UNDP, produced a Project Document (PD) for a ‘Community Production Centre in Huambo’. Apparently based on similar ILO projects and adapted in-house, it proposed the establishment of a Production Centre in Huambo where selected beneficiaries will receive training in Micro Enterprises and upon successful completion of the course a relevant kit subsidised by the project at 95% of its actual value. Beneficiaries will be demobilised soldiers, women heads of families, displaced and other vulnerable groups.
It is in general a sound idea that was well elaborated and that contained all the usual safeguards for monitoring and evaluation as is required by the UN. Cost efficiency and sustainability were considered and possible solutions proposed.
Carlos Bessa Victor, employed by Equator Bank, and at the time fairly influential within UNDP, seems to be the motivation force behind the idea.
Initially conceived as a freestanding project, it was to be executed by UNOPS with RUTEC as a subcontractor. Exactly how RUTEC became involved is not known.

There are no evidence to indicate that the contract has been put to tender, as is required under UN rules for services that exceeds U$D 50 000.00.

In January 1996 the Director of RUTEC, John Dommett, and his wife, conducted what they called a feasibility study in Huambo. Their subsequent report mentions that since they were not able to accurately assess the needs in Huambo they based their conclusions on the needs of a similar sized city in South Africa. The model proposed was an exact copy of the model as is found in the RUTEC Operations Manual and throughout the subsequent discussions over the next two years no alterations were made to this model.
There is no city in South Africa that even nearly approximates the reality of Huambo, Angola, and what was proposed was largely irrelevant for that city.
Huambo has an enclave economy that depends heavily on imports in spite of high agricultural potential. It has no industry, few services, no reliable supply of electricity and is virtually under siege with access only by air or in occasional convoys, protected by the military.
Unemployment runs at about 80 – 90%. Per capita income is much lower than the U$D 416.00 usually quoted for Angola. It is probably around U$D 70.00.
Twenty-three Micro Enterprise opportunities were proposed. Almost all of these were not possible for a variety of reasons: there were no suitable raw materials, it depended on formal industry that do not exist in Huambo, it relied on energy (electricity, gas, petrol or diesel) which is not freely available in Huambo, the product is unknown in Angola, the equipment would be too expensive or would not be able to be maintained, etc.
The PD, under various project codes (ANG 96/001, ANG 96/003, ANG 96/005, ANG 96/003/01/31) seems to have been circulated for the next two years looking for funding. Budgets for the project varied between a little more than U$D 500 000.00 to almost U$D 1 million. Possible donors included the Government of Italy, Equator Bank and Coca-Cola.
As this PD was doing its rounds, various questions were being asked within UNDP and UNOPS as to what RUTEC can offer.
The RUTEC proposal never altered. The same idea was presented for whatever amount of funding appeared possible at the time.

A committee meeting held on 18 March 1997, chaired by John Ohiorheneun and attended by Ibrahima Djibo, Leo Merores and Jessie Byron, raised, amongst others, the following issues:
The description of services to be undertaken by RUTEC need to be more explicit.
Justification is required for choosing RUTEC. It is most important to provide some kind of assessment. More details need to be given vis-à-vis RUTEC’s involvement in establishing CPCs. What precisely did they do? How well their performance was?
There was a question on the Due Process being followed in regards of sub-contracting. It is not clear at what point can the Bureau ask for a waiver and if some request does not have to go to the Committee on sub-contract beyond certain amount.
The meeting also felt that one needs to have an idea on the amount of subcontracting involved.
In conclusion, the committee felt that RUTEC seems qualified for the job. Nevertheless, for transparency purposes, all the questions about their work need to be fully answered. Furthermore, a clearer and better justified TOR is needed, placing greater emphasis on the services to be provided by RUTEC. The meeting suggested that the TOR be redrafted and for all recommendations made be incorporated in the new document.’

There is no evidence to suggest that these recommendations were complied to.

A letter dated 27 March 1997 to Bernard Ntegeye, Resident Representative – UNDP Angola from Solomon Akpata, Chief, Division II, Regional Bureau for Africa – UNDP New York, requests the hiring of consultants to consider the ‘waiver request for RUTEC to be awarded subcontract of components of the above project (ANG 96/003 – Community Production Centre in Huambo), which is executed by UNOPS.’
Revised Terms of References (TOR’s) are requested for forwarding to the committee.

There are no revised TOR’s.

A Fax dated 05 September 1997 from Dimitri Samaras (DimitriS@unops.org), Officer in Charge, Africa Division UNOPS New York to Bernard Ntgeye, RR UNDP Angola:

‘We would like to explain that we are not trying to be difficult but RUTEC has repeatedly resisted answering our questions in a straightforward way. …. RUTEC has made it extremely difficult for us to evaluate the value of the contract because they have continuously failed to provide a breakdown of the activities and their related costs. In addition we have explained to them repeatedly that we cannot give them an advance payment equal to over 90% of the contract value.’

At the same time the Provincial Government in Huambo was making repeated requests to Pierre Marie Achy, International Advisor for the CRP in Huambo, about when the project will be implemented. Pierre Marie Achy stated that continued delay in the implementation of this project is causing embarrassment to UNDP.

By all appearances, sometime between November 1997 and February 1998, UNDP instructed UNOPS to start operationalising the project.
Normally for this to happen a Project Document need to be signed by the Government, the implementing agency (UNOPS in this case) and UNDP.

No such document has been found to date.

On 20 February 1998, UNOPS and RUTEC signed contract no. C-971794 ‘ANG 96/003 – Community Production Centre Huambo, Angola’.

The ‘Statement of Work’ in this contract is exactly what RUTEC offered in January 1996 in spite of the fact that its quality had been questioned for almost two years.
The contract makes no reference to any Project Document and no specific, result-oriented goals are set to determine payments.
A total of fifteen milestones are set. The first five deals with licensing fees and the physical establishment of a centre in Huambo, delivery of vehicles and equipment. The remainder simply states ‘Management of Centre for Two Months’ for which U$D 57 126.00 in each instance will be paid.
The total value of the contract is U$D 1 538 201.00.
The contract is for an initial pilot phase of 18 months to end 31 May 2000.
Anticipating an earlier starting date, RUTEC requested an amendment to the contract and on 11 June 1998 signed this, which brought the termination forward to 31 January 2000 based on a starting date of September 1998.

RUTEC was now ready to start doing their thing. What this could possibly be, they are yet to tell.

It does not appear that funding for this project had been finalised at this stage.

On 26 March 1998, Michel Balima (michel.balima@undp.org) Senior Deputy Resident Representative – Projects (SDDR-P) UNDP Luanda, faxed Dimitri Samaras in New York:

‘Reference to your PS 101 regarding prodoc for RUTEC. Please note that RUTEC, though conceived initially as a stand-alone project, was made an integral part of the ANG 96/100 Community Rehabilitation Project. It is a subcontract to be financed from the output budget ANG 96/B01 budget line 2101 – Trust Fund for the CRP.’

In order for projects to be implemented under the CRP, they need to be reviewed and authorised by a Local Project Appraisal Committee (LPAC). This consists of representatives of the Government, the CRP and UNDP.

There is no signed documentation to indicate that this was ever done.

The National Director for the CRP, Dr Joao Ferreira has consistently claimed that CRP authorisation had never been given for this project. His stated reasons is that the project was too expensive for what was being offered and that it would rely on inputs from the outside instead of on local initiatives.

There is no documentation available to show that CRP authorisation had been sought or given.

During the course of 1998, UNDP made two transfers from the Trust Fund to UNOPS, totalling U$D 1 645 116.00. UNOPS retained 10% of this amount as Administrative and Overhead Support (AOS), an amount of U$D 164 511.00.

In The Beginning – Setting Up The Project

Towards the end of May 1998 John Dommett, the RUTEC Director, went to Huambo to start operationalising the project.
On 28 May 1998 he and Pierre Marie Achy interviewed Leon Kukkuk who was subsequently employed as Project Manager. He was given a copy of the contract with UNOPS as an explanation for what the project should do. Since this left him none the wiser, John Dommett explained that the project would consist of a training and production centre for Micro Enterprises. Upon completion of a two week course trainees would have the opportunity to buy a kit at its full value. Kits will be that equipment produced by RUTEC in their factory in Johannesburg, South Africa. Beneficiaries will include anybody that can afford to pay for the kit.

Although sceptical of this explanation, Leon Kukkuk felt that it to be a misunderstanding easily resolved through reference to the Project Document, which he determined to obtain from UNOPS.

Surely the UN system was not going to pay a private company to turn a huge profit in one of the poorest regions of the world?

The Provincial Government had made available an abandoned factory that needed to be cleaned and rehabilitated. It was the intention to work from tents that was to be pitched within the walls of the building. Extensive rehabilitation work was required in order to achieve this.

On 06 June 1998, Leon Kukkuk travelled to Johannesburg, South Africa, where RUTEC is based. Considering that RUTEC had been awarded the contract, without tendering for it, based on their experience on similar projects in South Africa, Leon Kukkuk requested information regarding their administrative and accounting procedures, reporting procedures, sample job descriptions, standard formats, etc. This is, in his opinion, essential for the smooth management of any project.

RUTEC had no such information.

All the administrative, accounting and logistical systems required for the running of a project was eventually put in place by Leon Kukkuk, with no input from RUTEC whatsoever.

On 13 June 1998 in a meeting with Michele Balima at UNDP in Luanda, Leon Kukkuk asked for, and was promised a copy of the Project Document.

He will eventually receive this on 19 September 2000.

From 15 June 1998, rehabilitation work started on the building. It was expected that a set-up phase, which would include rehabilitation of a building, importing all equipment, vehicles, etc, staff training and preparation of educational material, would last four months.
In Huambo fifty-five temporary workers were employed to start rehabilitation of the building. Several companies were sub-contracted to provide to provide various items.

Throughout the month of June 1998 more than 250 job applications were processed and interviews held. In the last week of June 1998 a Centre Manager, a Counsellor and four Trainers and various support staff signed an initial three-month contract that included Terms and Conditions and a Job Description.

At the end of June 1998 John Dommett went to Huambo to approve these appointments. In a meeting with staff he told them that their primary function would be to run a shop that has to sell as much equipment and raw materials as possible.

That was the last that was seen of RUTEC in Huambo for nineteen months.

The Counsellor and four Trainers went for two months training in Johannesburg on 10 July 1998. Leon Kukkuk made all their travel arrangements.

At this stage he had discovered that it is almost impossible to get any funds from RUTEC. The absence of this was causing immense difficulties for him, as was the fact that neither UNDP nor UNOPS assumed responsibility for organising his visa as is specified in the contract. He was to remain without legal documents until 15 March 2000.

Requesting funds in order to pay staff an advance on their salaries before travelling, Leon Kukkuk was told that this would not be possible since RUTEC has nobody with the capacity to travel in Angola. Staff will be given an advance on their salaries upon arrival in Johannesburg.

At the end of July 1998, Leon Kukkuk and Carlos Alberto Gomes, the Centre Manager, travelled to Johannesburg.
Carlos Gomes was supposed to receive a two-week Management Training course. He did not receive this. Neither of them did any substantive work that could be considered as contributing towards the establishment of a centre in Huambo. This two-week visit was considered by them to be a waste of their time.
In Johannesburg, staff were not provided with accommodation and food as was promised, but only accommodation. They also had not been paid any salary advances as had been promised. This meant, in effect, that they had to survive for two weeks on tea and biscuits that was provided on their course.

During discussions at RUTEC to have the staff salary advances paid, Leon Kukkuk was told by John Dommett that the staff, in line with similar practices in South Africa, will only be paid a commission on student fees and equipment sold. When it was pointed out to him that the project would then have to generate U$D 3 million in 18 months in order to cover salaries, he relented. Nevertheless, in October 1999, Leon Kukkuk received documents requesting him to implement this system. It was taken to Huambo and filed. In effect what RUTEC wanted to achieve was to make as much profit as possible out of Huambo, in addition to the U$D1.5 Million that they were already receiving from UNOPS – all at virtually no cost to themselves.

Leon Kukkuk prepared a detailed cash-flow projection that forecasted U$D 50 000.00 for construction and set-up, and minimum running costs of U$D 12 500.00 per month.

There is no reason to believe that anybody at RUTEC ever paid any attention to this document.
A request by Leon Kukkuk to open a bank account in Angola was turned down on the argument that this would be too expensive to run.

It was not clear who at RUTEC would be responsible for the project. It was also not clear which staff had appropriate skills and experience to be responsible for such a project or to contribute towards it in any way.
Leon Kukkuk, in a meeting with RUTEC staff in Johannesburg, mentioned that there would need to be a substantial improvement in RUTEC’s competence if they would want to successfully manage a project in Huambo, Angola.
Improvements in RUTEC’s performance consisted of requesting Leon Kukkuk, at the end of August 1998, to travel from Huambo to Johannesburg to arrange visa extensions for the Angolan staff that was undergoing training there.

Their explanation for this was the fact that they do not have staff that can do this.

On two occasions Leon Kukkuk was also asked to travel to Johannesburg to oversee the logistics of eventually sending about four container loads of equipment to Huambo.

Once again, their explanation for this was the fact that they do not have staff that can do this.

At this time Leon Kukkuk was overseeing the rehabilitation and construction work in Huambo, logistics in Johannesburg and trying to find out what the management arrangements for the project are in Luanda. He had no legal documents and was receiving virtually no support from UNOPS on the argument that this is a UNDP project and no support from UNDP on the argument that it is a UNOPS project.

Contact with UNOPS throughout 1998 was considered informal since Lawrence Doczy, their Representative in Luanda, was ill for most of the time and outside of Angola. Leon Kukkuk never had any opportunity to talk to him.
Obtaining funds from RUTEC proved to be an impossible task that was never resolved. After requesting funds for more than a month and explaining that the lack of such is becoming acute, Leon Kukkuk, on 13 September 1998, was asked by RUTEC to travel to Johannesburg to collect it. His explanation that this would be extremely difficult considering the construction work in Huambo, was dismissed as unimportant. Also the staff were scheduled to return to Luanda on 20 September 1998. Accommodation in Luanda, as well as transport to Huambo needed to be arranged for them. This would not be possible without funds. RUTEC maintained that they do not have staff that can travel in Angola. They were also not prepared to give any of the Angolan staff members any funds to take to Angola with them.

In the face of this, Leon Kukkuk, without funds or any support, travelled to Johannesburg by arranging a lift with the UN Peacekeepers (MONUA), arriving there on the morning of 15 September 1998. On 17 September 1998 he returned with MONUA to Luanda. In two days in Johannesburg he spoken to John Dommett for ten minutes before leaving for the airport, and had received no funds.

On 19 September 1998, Leon Kukkuk wrote and faxed a very strongly worded letter to RUTEC complaining about their lack of competence even in basic administrative matters, lack of support to the project and extreme reluctance to provide funds for work that was already under way. A copy of this letter was left with Michel Balima requesting guidance as to how these issues should be resolved.

No substantive responses were received from either RUTEC or UNDP. Mike Klosterman, Operations Manager for RUTEC, did write a letter in which he mentioned that RUTEC is attempting to implement a project in an area where they have no experience but offered no specific solutions to specific issues raised. By December 1998 his short-lived career at RUTEC had come to an end.

On 20 September 1998 the Angolan staff returned from their two-month training course. With them they brought U$D 4 700.00 of the U$D 25 000.00 that was requested.

At a meeting with them on 21 September 1998, they claimed that their impression of RUTEC in general is negative and that they have very little confidence that RUTEC can in any way manage a project in Huambo. Leon Kukkuk was asked to take up these issues and resolve them before the project is implemented.

All through 1998 the security situation in Angola was deteriorating. In the beginning of September 1998 UNOPS instructed RUTEC to suspend all project activities that would require capital investment in Huambo. Activities that do not require capital investment and activities outside of Huambo (such as staff training and preparation of training material) can however continue.

At the end of October 1998 UNOPS had given a verbal agreement that the project can continue. They promised that this will confirmed in writing.

At this time most preparations had been made in Huambo. Equipment in Johannesburg was packed and ready to be taken by road to Kaáma, Southern Angola, from there to be flown to Huambo.
Leon Kukkuk and Carlos Gomes drove two vehicles, in a MONUA convoy, from Luanda to Huambo. It arrived in Huambo on 05 November 1998 in what was to be the last UN convoy and the last convoy for more than a year.
On 04 December 1998 RUTEC received written instructions from UNOPS to proceed with the project, showing the logic of making decisions from New York.

On 05 December 1998 yet another full-scale war broke out in Angola.

Wars, almost by definition, are times of insecurity and uncertainty. Considering the advanced state of planning and the go-ahead from UNOPS, Leon Kukkuk stayed in daily contact with John Dommett from RUTEC, Michel Balima from UNDP and Jose Salema from UNOPS, Luanda seeking guidance on the best course of action. Naturally, they themselves were very uncertain regarding how to proceed but mentioned that such a decision would probably best made on the ground.

Logically, especially in the face of the new reality, the project needed to be extensively rethought. The remainder of the funds, in excess of U$D1.2 million at this stage, could probably have been spent much more usefully on the humanitarian disaster that was about to descend upon Huambo and Angola.

This agreement did not allow for that sort of flexibility.

Leon Kukkuk, perhaps somewhat irresponsibly, decided to go ahead. To achieve this, he asked for, and subsequently received, the full support of the Angolan staff.

From 09 to 12 December 1998, four planeloads of equipment were received.

Tens of thousands of people descended upon the airport trying to get on any flight out of Huambo. The airport, and, eventually a one-kilometre perimeter around it, was heavily guarded by police and military. Huambo was bombarded and attacked on several occasions. By the beginning of January 1999, two UN planes had been shot down outside the city. Torrential rain fell almost daily.

On 05 January 1999, MONUA, the UN peacekeepers left in a convoy for Benguela, on the coast.

By 25 January 1999, the Centre was set up and ready to start working.

None of the management issues and misgivings that had been generated in the previous months had been resolved.

Working On A Development Project In A War

One of the first and the greatest victories that the project achieved, and one, which, to a large extent, carried it through all its subsequent calamities, was psychological. Even though it had many ups and downs and even though it achieved some worthwhile results, it was never forgotten how it set up and started operating at a time when Angola was plunged into a devastating war for the second time in less than a decade.

None of the staff had any experience in Micro Enterprises. Considering the lack of technical support from RUTEC and the fact that the training received in Johannesburg was considered largely irrelevant for Angola, everything had to be learned from first principles.

By the end of March 1999 Leon Kukkuk travelled to Luanda. It was his intention to meet with John Dommett (RUTEC), Michel Balima (UNDP) and Jose Salema (New Representative UNOPS, Luanda) in Luanda to discuss the project.
Co-incidentally Michel Balima and apparently Dimitri Samaras (UNOPS, New York) travelled to Huambo on 31 March 1999 to visit the project. Although Michel Balima seemed pleased with what he saw, there are no mission reports available regarding this visit.
In Luanda Leon Kukkuk, Jose Salema and John Dommett met on the same day.
John Dommett, by this time had sold a 75% share of RUTEC to The Land Development Bank and the National Mineworkers Union in South Africa for about U$D 3 million.

The following issues were raised on this day:

The tents are proving to be uncomfortably hot, wet and unhealthy. Could funds be made available to replace these with structures using local technology? Alternatively, existing centres can be used. This would spread the geographical impact of the project.

Response: Using tents for projects are highly profitable to RUTEC. An alternative should not be considered. New centres can only be used if relevant contracts are signed with UNOPS.

Most of the equipment supplied by RUTEC is inappropriate. A lot of it is of poor quality and arrived broken. This, as well as the high expense (U$D1 000.00 – U$D 5 000.00 per kit) of the equipment would make it highly improbable that any of the beneficiaries could afford it or that any finance would be able to be raised for it. Would it be possible to produce equipment locally?

Response: Local production of equipment cannot be considered. If, however, anybody would be prepared to sign a licensing agreement, equipment can be assembled in Huambo. (The equipment that was produced by RUTEC was all either within the public domain or copyright violations. Evidence also exists that suggests that RUTEC deliberately sent equipment to Huambo that was broken in order to cut costs.)

Lack of funding was discussed but never resolved.

None of the management arrangements was discussed. Jose Salema felt that this is an issue that should be raised with UNDP. The termination date needed to be determined and agreed upon. This should have been 30 June 2000. It was never formally agreed.

In the beginning of April 1999, Leon Kukkuk met with Teresa Felix (teresa.felix@undp.org) the new National Programme Officer at UNDP, Luanda.
She informed him that he needs to work closer with the CRP and also requested monthly reports containing a summary of activities and the accounts. This was subsequently sent on a monthly basis. There is no evidence to suggest that anybody ever read them.

Back in Huambo Leon Kukkuk met with the Provincial Governor, Paolo Kassoma and the Director of Planning, Henrigue Barbosa. It was felt that the project, as it stands, would follow the same path as other projects by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and UNOPS, where lots of money is spent on training but that no new employment is created.
It was therefore decided that the centre will provide training and support for new businesses as well as logistical support and counselling during at least during the first year. Local production will be encouraged and equipment, as far as possible, will be produced locally.
A local Board of Directors was created to oversee the centre.
The Governor changed the name of the centre to ‘The Centre for the Promotion and Training of Micro Industries in Huambo – MICROFORM’.
It had now effectively become a local initiative, supported by the Provincial Government and to a very large extent by Development Workshop, a Canadian NGO with many years of experience in Angola.
The real owners of the project were now effectively, through their own lack of interest and competence, excluded from the project.
Leon Kukkuk was charged, yet again, to approach UNDP, UNOPS and RUTEC to improve the management arrangements, specifically evaluation and monitoring, as well as ensuring meaningful technical assistance and funding for the centre. He felt that this could best be done by getting all the partners together.

RUTEC was going through its own difficulties, which resulted in a spectacular turnover of senior staff. UNDP, as always, were preoccupied with the justification for their existence, which would see the arrival of Zoraida Mesa, the new Resident Representative, at the end of 1999, charged with putting UNDP back on track again. She would last a little bit more than a year. UNOPS stumbled along, did not feel that this project was their responsibility, and eventually left Angola at the end of January 2000, hopefully for good.

In the beginning of October 1999, after a discussion with Buswe Yafele, the new CEO for RUTEC, Leon Kukkuk started planning a mission to Huambo. These are things that should be organised by UNDP, as a matter of routine, but UNDP staff rarely leave their offices in Luanda and then seldom spend more than a few hours in the interior of the country.

On 14 January 2000 Leon Kukkuk met with Joao Ferreira, the CRP Director, in his office in Luanda. Dr Ferreira reiterated his opposition to the project as it was originally planned. In the light of the results it was achieving in Huambo, however, it was imperative that it be evaluated and a decision made regarding its future. This was supposed to be done through a tripartite meeting to be organised by UNDP.

The mission took place on 31 March 2000 and consisted of Representatives of CRP, UNDP and RUTEC.
Buzwe Yafele (RUTEC) was primarily concerned with trying to sell 10 tons of wheat flour from South Africa to the centre. The centre was supposed to raise the funds for this. He did mention that the issues that the centre management was raising could be discussed once a guarantee has been received that the RUTEC contract will be extended.
Francisco de Almeida (fransisco.almeida@undp.org), Assistant Deputy Resident Representative, UNDP Luanda, asked several times why the centre appears to be so impoverished if sufficient funds had been made available for its management. He received no reply and did not pursue the issue.

On 03 April 2000 a meeting was held in Luanda. No conclusive results were obtained from this meeting. Somewhat rambling minutes were written in April 2001 in an effort to determine what was said at the time.

At the end of June 2000 the project should terminate but this date had not been determined officially. Some mention was made that a tripartite meeting and evaluation meeting will be held in May 2000 to determine the future of the project.
With less than three months to go it was imperative that a concrete decision be reached forthwith.

At the end of April 2000 the CRP issued a report that stated that the project will be evaluated with a view towards extension, and that a project along similar lines will be planned for Benguela, to be implemented by December 2000.

By the end of April 2000, Buswe Yafele had been dismissed from RUTEC and replaced by Boris Kamstra.

What did the project achieve?

This is one of the most difficult questions to answer. There is no information available from any objective and competent evaluation.
Any attempt at evaluating its activities must take into account the very complex management arrangements and a close look at how the funds were spent.
Apart from the centre in Huambo that had kept meticulous records, accounts are sketchy to say the least. More or less specific accounts are available. For the sake of clarity only a brief summary will be given:

Sometime in 1998 UNDP transferred an amount of U$D 1 645 116.00 from the Trust Fund to UNOPS.
UNOPS, as a matter of course, retained 10% of this amount as Administrative and Overhead Support: U$D 164 511.00.
Over a period of two years, from June 1998 to June 2000, UNOPS paid a total of U$D 1 505 521.00 to RUTEC in twenty instalments.

During the same period of time the Centre in Huambo had spent a total of U$D 235 152.00. This includes all construction, rehabilitation, management, international travel, local salaries and running costs and is equivalent to 15% of the total budget available.
Of this amount U$D 227 000.00 were provided by RUTEC and the balance paid by Leon Kukkuk, a total of U$D 8 152.00.
RUTEC also supplied equipment for the centre. Although their invoice for this does not stand up to scrutiny, it reflects an amount of U$D 285 000.00.

This means that an amount in the region of U$D 1 million, or two thirds of the funds available, need to be explained.

UNOPS had quite clearly paid this money to RUTEC.

What had RUTEC done with it?

A series of e-mails between Teresa Felix (UNDP) and Boris Kamstra (RUTEC) elicited the following responses:

24 February 2001:
‘I am afraid that this is information that I don’t have. I only joined Rutec at the end of this project and will have to find the relevant files to establish what was supplied at what cost. … To get further information will be difficult and not possible before at least Wednesday, as I will have to contact John Dommett who is in Portugal (I think).’

05 March 2001:
‘I have been going through the company records at the time of the project. The system used did not separate out the costings, as such it is very difficult to allocate some costs to the project and others not, especially not knowing the history of the project or which people were employed for this project.

I am, through some bank statements, able to find a few specific costs such as flights to and from Angola and payments for satellite phones. But this by no means gives us any clearer picture of what was spent on this project.

I am sorry I am unable to be more specific. Not having the information at hand and any idea of the history of the project makes it impossible for me to get the exact numbers.’

Throughout the project (June 1998 – June 2000) local staff salaries were paid two to three months in arrears, with the exception of November and December 1999, and then January 2000 when Leon Kukkuk paid salaries from his own resources.
Leon Kukkuk for the same period of employment (June 1998 – June 2000) received payments in March 1999, February 2000, April 2001 and June 2001. At the time of writing he remains uncertain if his salary is up to date or not.

Leaving this issue aside for the time being, it is obvious that the project need to be evaluated on two levels.

The first, the UNDP, UNOPS, RUTEC alliance, at a cost of more than U$D 1.5 million, is considered by us to be an absolute and spectacular failure that should not ever be repeated. We shall have a look at how UNDP proceeded to correct this error.

On a second level, one need to consider another project ‘MICROFORM’, to all intents and purposes a completely local initiative, and what it had managed to achieve with U$D 227 000.00.

Its achievements will be summarised very briefly:

· Several Micro Enterprise opportunities were developed from first principles, using local resources and technology. Lack of funds was the major constraint for expansion.
· Equipment, adapted to local realities and often of superior quality, were produced locally. Production was limited by lack of funds.
· New products or products that were previously imported, started appearing on the market. Lack of funds limited expansion.
· Approximately 250 small businesses created in two years. Approximately 500 people gained employment through indirect activities – raw material suppliers, sellers, transporters, etc.
· It was seen as the vehicle for the future development of Huambo that could benefit both urban and rural disadvantaged communities.

It was calculated that an efficient project, with more than a thousand enterprises created in one year can be done on a budget of U$D 350 000.00 per year. The arrangement with RUTEC was considered locally to be not only expensive but also detrimental to the project. With the amount of funds available, a local initiative could have assisted as much as 50 000 people directly and indirectly over a period of 4 years and have made a significant impact on the Province.

What about the future?

Although not officially confirmed, the pilot phase of the project would come to an end at the end of June 2000. At any event, it was likely that funds would run out at about that time.

A decision had to be made regarding its future. This is the responsibility of UNDP, as owner of the project.

Various options needed to be considered, taking into account to the wishes of the local community and the Provincial Government as well as donor interest and the availability of funding.
These options included:

· Full closure of the project.
· Continuation under the same terms.
· Continuation under new arrangements.

Each of these options would have consequences and associated costs that needed to be managed. A decision regarding vehicles and other assets can only be made by the UNDP Resident Representative based on recommendations of the UNDP Local Property Survey Board.
Staff needed to be informed, at least 3 months in advance, whether their contracts would be terminated or extended and the necessary remunerations made according to Angolan Labour Law.
In anticipation of this Leon Kukkuk requested a transfer from RUTEC for an amount of U$D 45 000.00 to pay the usual salary arrears and other debts. He received U$D 19 125.00 of this amount in the beginning of June 2000. A further request for U$D 25 000.00 resulted in the receipt of U$D 9 980.00 at the end of July. Contributing U$D 5 000.00 from his own resources he was then able to pay salaries until the end of July 2000, leaving about U$D 10 000.00 in unpaid bills and commitments.

The Provincial Government was putting a lot of pressure on Leon Kukkuk to find a solution. This meant that he was faced with all the responsibility but had no authority. In two years his efforts had shown no results, but as the RUTEC contract was coming to an end various options presented themselves.

With vague promises coming from UNDP that the project will be evaluated, it drifted into a state of limbo. Hoping for the best, the staff continued working without contracts or salaries. This was a project that had achieved many positive results under extremely difficult circumstances. Many donors demonstrated an interest in financing it, if its external problems could be solved. Nobody wanted to get involved in any ‘funny agreements with UNOPS and RUTEC.’ Although they shall remain anonymous for the time being, there is also a strong belief amongst certain people that UNDP involvement should be removed from the project: ‘that’s the kiss of death for any project’.

From about the end of April 2000, even more of Leon Kukkuk’s time was taken up, not with the job that he was employed to do, but to compensate, as an individual, for the shortcomings of organisations and companies like UNDP, UNOPS and RUTEC. A project, in which responsibility was supposed to be distributed over three legal entities now came to rest on the shoulders of a private individual.

For the sake of brevity, the machinations of these three organisations to avoid the consequences of their considerable shortcomings shall not be gone into. Neither shall their machinations to accept credit for the project’s successes be described in any great detail.

Ninety nine percent of correspondence, e-mail, telephone calls and conversations by Leon Kukkuk failed to elicit any response whatsoever.

Within this sea of indifference the following events can be summarised briefly:

MICROFORM: Motivated by vague promises from UNDP, the centre stumbled from one contingency plan to the next. Staff worked without contracts or salaries. Leon Kukkuk spent from 19 September 2000 – 10 October 2000 in Luanda but returned to Huambo without achieving any meaningful results. On 31 January 2001 the centre closed amidst considerable chaos and ill feeling. Before closing Leon Kukkuk attempted to obtain support from the Provincial Government and other NGO’s. Henrigue Barbosa (Director of Planning) said that this type of project could only be closed after an evaluation and authorisation from the Minister of Planning. Alberta Gomes (Huambo Representative ADRA, an Angolan NGO) and Carlos Figueiredo (Huambo Representative Development Workshop), both members of the board of Directors of MICROFORM, were vehemently opposed to such a closure.
It went ahead anyway.
The biggest problem was what to do with substantial amounts of equipment. These were divided into four categories:
1. Those that can be distributed to selected beneficiaries.
2. Those that can be distributed to the Ministry of Agriculture, Training and Research Centres and NGO’s.
3. Those that can be sold.
4. Those that can be stored pending possible future use.

Staff was paid as much as possible from the sale of equipment and told that if there is to be no movement regarding the project, the balance of equipment shall be sold by the end of February 2001.
On 11 February 2001 Leon Kukkuk flew by military flight to Luanda.

RUTEC: A small flurry of activity as they realized that their contract won’t be extended as a matter of routine. They could not understand why, if RUTEC had such a successful project in Huambo, wasn’t it being supported. They were told that RUTEC is not necessarily seen as part of the project in Huambo and should come up with a constructive proposal if they want to play a continuing role. This proposal should answer the question of how RUTEC involvement can contribute to the project as well as address the perception that their involvement to date has been both non-existent and very expensive.
Their response: ‘For the future of your project I do not know enough of what you require and how Rutec can assist in this to be able to put forward a coherent plan for the future.’
On 10 November 2000, whilst forwarding to Leon Kukkuk instructions from UNOPS to terminate the project: ‘ Please let me have any comments that you may have on it, and take whatever action you deem appropriate given that we will not be in a position to support you financially until a new agreement is worked out.’

UNOPS: UNOPS did not have any presence in Angola since January 2000. They made no handover of the project before leaving, presumably since they felt that it was not their project in the first place.
In a fax dated 01 November 2000 from Dimitri Samaras to Boris Kamstra, RUTEC is instructed to terminate the project immediately.
A note says: ‘In order to implement steps 3 and 4 above, UNOPS shall contact UNDP/CO to initiate our internal UN procedure for transfer of project equipment to the Government and request identification of the designated entity or ultimate beneficiary (ies); the official transfer shall take place upon a decision of the UN Resident Co-ordinator based on a recommendation of the UNDP Local Property Survey Board (LPSB).’

It is almost unnecessary to say that none of this was ever done. A lot of correspondence by Leon Kukkuk seeking clarity regarding the practical and logistical aspects of such a transfer remains unanswered.

On 15 May 2001 Leon Kukkuk spoke to Dimitri Samaras via telephone. Following is a copy of his notes on the conversation:
UNOPS to disburse project and not implement it.
Pierre Marie Achy to authorize payments, thereafter UNDP RR.
Did not get along with John Dommett, and almost canceled contract.
Is available to help find solutions.
Feels that UNDP approach is retaliatory but that new management might have a different approach.
RUTEC was a pre-selected contractor, did not follow the usual procedures.
UNOPS was brought into the project at the last moment and their role was never fully clarified.
When he tried to get hold of John Dommett to discuss solutions, he was told that this person was no longer at RUTEC and found that the new management had very little idea of the project.

UNDP: On 13 July 2000, Francisco de Almeida (UNDP) wrote an e-mail to Teresa Felix (UNDP):
‘Please have the note for the file on the meeting held further to our trip to Huambo with the RUTEC Director ready by Monday at the latest. This issue needs to be finalised prior to Mr Balima’s departure, scheduled for the 18th. So please give top priority to this issue to put our office on the safe side. By the way what is happening to Leon??
Please ask him to come to see us so we can discuss the future of the project in light of our current financial situation.’

Yet again no time or space will be wasted to say that this was not done.

On 22 October 2000, as part of the Country Review, the review team visited the project in Huambo and were informed of its difficulties. As a result of this Zoraida Mesa, the UNDP RR, wrote an undated memorandum to James Curry (james.curry@undp.org), Director, Office of Audit and Performance Review, who in turn on 14 January 2001 posed these questions to Bisrat Aklilu, Deputy Executive Director, UNOPS, New York. His response on 14 February 2001 demonstrates that UNOPS had lost whatever tenuous grasp they may ever have had on this project sometime late in 1998.

On 04 November 2000 Stan Nkwain (stan.nkwain@undp.org) Senior Deputy Resident Representative –Projects, UNDP, Luanda, visited Huambo and discussed the project with Leon Kukkuk. At the end of the day he returned to Luanda with some documents and a promise that a reply will be forthcoming within two weeks.

These documents have since disappeared and no reply had been given to date.

At the end of March 2001 Leon Kukkuk and Teresa Felix presented the project to Michel Falavigna (michel.falavigna@undp.org), Regional Programme Advisor, and UNDP, NEW YORK.

As is usual this is neither mentioned in his back-to-office report, neither has there been any feedback.

Leon Kukkuk was contracted under the CRP umbrella from 01 March 2001 to 30 June 2001 charged with the following:

· To prepare the relevant documentation for the auditors as motivation for a detailed evaluation and audit of the project.
· To prepare a Termination Report and inventory of equipment currently in Huambo
· To prepare a Draft Project Document for a possible follow-up project.

Preparing a work plan resulted in the following exchange:

Before approving this plan, could you clarify what you mean by "legal
closure" of the project?

Thanks.

Dear Mr Nkwain,

Thanks very much for your question, which I will try to clarify from my point of view.

Apart from beneficiaries and donors, which is an important priority, there are several partners that feel that they have a stake in the project. These are PRC, Provincial Government and of course UNOPS, UNDP and RUTEC.

In July 2000, when the contract with RUTEC was coming to an end, and we were not receiving any concrete instructions from UNOPS or UNDP, we were faced with three options:

Abandon the project.
Close the project and place everything in storage. (or hand it over to the government, who was asking for supporting documentation)
Continue as best we can pending a solution.

These options were presented to the local authorities who told me that options one and two would be illegal in terms of recognised procedure. (Remember that they want a continuation of the project and it is very difficult to find their support for anything other than that.)

When we did close down at the end of January 2001,I was once again told that this is considered to an illegal action on my part, since it was a decision made unilaterally, without any supporting documentation or instructions from the duly recognised authorities. I was told that these instructions should be based on decisions made between the owners of the project in Luanda and that the governor should be informed of this first. By not following this procedure I am opening myself up to actions that can be taken against me. (I was confined to my house for two days as a consequence of closing the project.)

In this context legal closure would then be:

Something that is not done by me unilaterally.
Addresses the considerable ill feeling that currently exists regarding the chaos and disorder under which this project functioned and closed down.
Based on documentation that reflects the decision of the owners of the project.
Informing the local authorities.

Since a lot of mistakes and profound decisions had already been made I think legal closure should also include some sort of damage control in order to regain credibility.

Once again all information available were presented to Bereket Sletzion (bereket.sletzion@undp.org) the UNDP auditor, who apparently about the middle of June 2001 informed his superiors that he feels an audit to be necessary pending an evaluation.

On 27 June 2001 Leon Kukkuk distributed the Draft Termination Report and Draft Project Proposal. The Draft Project Proposal was prepared in full consultation with the Provincial Government of Huambo, Development Workshop, ADRA and Swiss Co-operation and a copy was also sent to them for feedback. They urgently want to know what future possibilities exist for their own strategic planning.

The evaluation mission was held from 21 – 24 August 2001. No mission report is yet available but would be responded to once received. The most polite description of the mission is perhaps that it was a dismal failure resulting in the loss of whatever little credibility UNDP thought they might have had left.

Teresa Felix informed staff, that has already been waiting for more than a year for a response from UNDP that they have to wait until phase II of the project is operational, after which their salary arrears will be paid to them in small monthly increments. Responding to a question about when phase II will start she said that it won’t be for several months to a year. She was unaware of the content of the Project Document that she had received two months previously or even of the basic structure of a possible new project.

In 13 months no progress had been made in resolving any of the issues. Most of these issues were presented for the first time on 19 September 1998.

It is difficult not to come to the conclusion that UNDP is an arrogant and incompetent organisation obsessively concerned with its own internal dynamics. Staff, on all levels, had either forgotten or has never known what the objectives of UNDP is supposed to be.
This is having an immensely destructive effect on our lives, which is nowhere near resolved.

If the Angolan people are pinning their hopes on any assistance from UNDP in the reconstruction of their country, one can only advise that it is in vain.

Here are the questions we want answered:

UNDP

Did UNDP follow their own internal procedures and safeguards in the preparation of the Project Document with due consultation to their counterparts in the Angolan Government?
What is UNDP policy on projects with conditionality? What steps are taken to prevent these sorts of projects to be implemented by UNDP?
How did UNDP ensure that the contract that UNOPS signed with RUTEC conforms to the objectives as set out in a Project Document?
Did UNDP follow their own internal procedures for monitoring and evaluation, tri-partite reviews, timely and meaningful follow-up reports and in co-operation with their counterparts in the Angolan Government? Where are these reports?
Did UNDP liase with UNOPS, RUTEC, the Central and Provincial Government and other partners, to ensure that the end of the pilot phase are managed in a meaningful way, in a timely fashion and in accordance to their own internal procedures?
What steps do UNDP take to ensure that projects that originate from their office and are financed by them are implemented with due respect to the fundamental rights of its staff and beneficiaries according to the statutes of the United Nations system?

UNOPS

What steps were taken to ensure that the contract that they had signed with RUTEC conforms to specific and achievable objectives as set out in a project document and conform to the internal procedures put in place to ensure that these objectives are met?
What steps were taken to ensure that the training methodology of RUTEC is original (and not perhaps a copy of the ILO system) and that their equipment are original (and not perhaps within the public domain or copyright violations) before paying a licensing fee of U$D 250 000.00?
Justification of how the U$D 164 511.00 received as AOS had been spent on administration, ensuring compliance with the objectives of the project, with timely and meaningful mission reports and feedback to issues raised.
Do they have completion certificates that justifies the payment of U$D 1 505 521.00 in twenty instalments. If so, what was the qualification of this person(s) to ensure that the objectives of the project were being met to justify payment?
What steps was taken to ensure that the end of the pilot phase are managed in a meaningful way in accordance with the reality and the wishes of UNDP, UNOPS, RUTEC, the Central and Provincial Government and other partners, in a timely fashion and in accordance to their own internal procedures?
What steps do UNOPS take to ensure that projects that they are required to implement are implemented with due respect to the fundamental rights of its staff and beneficiaries according to the statutes of the United Nations system?

RUTEC

What happened to about U$D 1 million?
Was health and unemployment insurance arranged for the staff as was required by the contract? If not, how can this oversight be corrected.
Are any reports available that shows what technical assistance RUTEC had provided to the project, or in general terms shows what benefit RUTEC was project? Are these backed up by clear accounts?
What steps were taken to ensure that the end of the pilot phase are managed in a meaningful way in accordance with the reality and the wishes of UNDP, UNOPS, RUTEC, the Central and Provincial Government and other partners, and in a timely fashion?
What steps do RUTEC take to ensure that the Fundamental Rights of its staff and beneficiaries are protected?

Luanda and Huambo, Angola

15 September 2001

(This document has been prepared in preparation for action that we are taking against UNDP. The Provincial Government in Huambo, Angola has already started legal procedures against UNDP, UNOPS and RUTEC for non-payment of salaries, misappropriating funds and non compliance with promises that was made to them. We also have the support of the Central Government and are hoping to take this issue as far as possible to ensure that UNDP are not any longer in any position to harm peoples lives. Any advice and assistance will be highly appreciated.)

Portuguese Version:

Como o Sistema da ONU - Em colaboração com Negócio Privado - Contribui Para Desenvolvimento e a Redução da Pobreza

A carta seguinte foi escrita em nome de pessoas ordinárias que no fim se acham receptoras dos esforços da ONU para melhorar a vida da sua comunidade.
Estas pessoas são do Huambo, em Angola, pessoas que sofreram mais de 30 anos de guerra, que assistiram a sua cidade a ser destruída, produção agrícola e industrial reduzida a quase nada e que as escolas, saúdes e serviços sociais desaparecem. Eles foram bombardeados, mortos a tiro, massacrados, mutilados e deslocados das suas casas e das suas terras. Alguns deles são provavelmente mais pobres que a maioria das pessoas mais desvantajosas no mundo.
Esta carta tem como objectivo esboçar as circunstâncias de um projecto que foi projectado e planificado pelo Programa das Nações Unidas para o Desenvolvimento (PNUD) em Luanda, Angola, a ser implementado pelo Escritório das Nações Unidas para Serviços de Projecto (UNOPS) que subcontratou uma companhia privada sul africana RUTEC (os especialistas em Micro Empreendimento e desenvolvimento (rutec@iafrica. com)).
Se tudo isto soar muito complicado, quase não é tão complexo quanto as consequências subsequentes deste incomodo acordo, causado por ganância, corrupção, má gestão e níveis incríveis de incompetência.

É nossa convicção que algumas práticas de ONU constituem uma violação de direitos humanos fundamentais. Estas violações ou estão comprometidas ou perdoadas pelo Sistema das Nações Unidas, denominado nosso guardião moral. Este relato representa só uma incidência, muito longe de ser uma excepção, é com toda a probabilidade bastante representativa de como as Nações Unidas operam.

O INICIO

Após o Protocolo de Lusaka, no final de 1994 (o acordo de paz entre o Governo angolano e a força rebelde UNITA) o PNUD organizou e coordenou uma reunião em Bruxelas, Bélgica para discutir a reconstrução de Angola. Ambos, José Eduardo dos Santos, o Presidente angolano, e Jonas Savimbi, líder de UNITA, estavam presentes ao que foi conhecido como a Mesa-redonda de Bruxelas, onde estava os principais doadores e os partidos interessados. O resultado da reunião era o Programa de Reconstrução Comunitária (PRC) um tipo de Plano Marshall para Angola. A Comunidade Internacional prometeu U$D 1 Bilhão para este programa, para o qual foi criado um Fundo de Maneio, a ser administrado por PNUD. O PRC nunca esteve completamente funcional e nenhuma das suas estruturas funcionou no seu ligar devidamente. Parte das razões era a instabilidade e a deteriorada situação de segurança, principalmente pela causa da não aderência da UNITA ao Protocolo de Lusaka. Também, só U$D 100.00 milhões da quantia prometida foi recebida. A maioria dos doadores preferiram apoiar as ONG's internacionais, nacionais e locais.

Num dia, provavelmente no final de 1995, a Unidade de Economia do PNUD, produziu um Documento Projecto (DP) para um "Centro de Produção Comunitária no Huambo". Aparentemente, baseado em projectos semelhantes aos da OIT e adaptados localmente, propôs o estabelecimento de um Centro de Produção no Huambo onde seleccionou os beneficiários que receberiam treinamento em Micro Empresas e no final do curso aos beneficiários com aproveitamento seriam distribuídos equipamento subsidiado pelo projecto a 95% de seu valor real. Seriam beneficiários os soldados desmobilizados, mulheres chefes de famílias, deslocados e outros grupos vulneráveis.
É no geral, uma ideia que foi bem elaborada e isso conteve todas as habituais formas de protecção, monitoria e avaliação como é requerida pela ONU. Foram consideradas a eficiência de custo e sustentabilidade e as propostas de soluções possíveis.
Carlos Bessa Victor, empregado pelo Banco de Equador, e na ocasião bastante influente dentro de PNUD, parece ser à força de motivação da ideia.
Inicialmente concebido como um projecto independente, seria executado pelo UNOPS tendo a RUTEC como subcontratante. Exactamente como é que a RUTEC foi envolvida não é conhecido.

Não há nenhuma evidência a indicar que o contrato foi submetido a concurso publico, como são as regras das ONU para serviços que excedem U$D 50 000.00.

Em Janeiro 1996, o Director da RUTEC, John Dommett, e a sua esposa, visitaram Angola e elaboraram um estudo de viabilidade no Huambo. O relatório subsequente deles menciona que não puderam avaliar com precisão as necessidades no Huambo e fundamentaram as suas conclusões nas necessidades de uma cidade de tamanho semelhante na África do Sul. O modelo proposto era uma cópia exacta do modelo utilizado pelo Manual de Operações da RUTEC e ao longo das discussões subsequentes nos dois anos a seguir nenhuma alteração foi feita a este modelo.
Não há nenhuma cidade na África do Sul que quase iguala ou se aproxima à realidade do Huambo, Angola, pelo que a proposta do estudo de viabilidade é bastante irrelevante para aquela cidade.
Huambo tem uma economia de enclave que depende grandemente de importações, em despeito do alto potencial agrícola. Não tem nenhuma indústria, poucas oficinas, nenhuma provisão segura de electricidade e está virtualmente dependente da via aérea e do acesso terrestre em ocasionais comboios de viaturas escoltadas pelo exército.
O Desemprego abrange aproximadamente 80-90%. Rendimento per capita é muito mais baixo que o U$D 416.00 que normalmente citam para Angola. É provavelmente a volta de U$D 70.00.
Foram propostas vinte e três oportunidades de Micro Empresas. Quase todas estas Empresas não eram possíveis por uma serie de razões: não havia matérias-primas, dependiam da indústria formal que não existe no Huambo, dependiam da energia (electricidade, gás, gasolina ou gasoleo) que não está livremente disponível no Huambo, o produto era desconhecido em Angola, o equipamento seria muito caro ou não poderia ser mantido, etc.
O DP, com vários códigos de projecto (ANG 96/001, ANG 96/003, ANG 96/005, ANG 96/003/01/31) parece ter circulado durante os dois anos seguintes a procura de fundos. Os orçamentos para o projecto variaram entre um mais pequeno de U$D 500 000.00 para um de quase U$D 1 milhão. Os prováveis doadores seriam o Governo de Itália, Banco de Equador e Coca-Cola.
Quando este DP estava circulando, foram sendo feitas várias perguntas dentro de PNUD e UNOPS sobre o que RUTEC poderia oferecer.
A proposta de RUTEC nunca foi alterada. A mesma ideia foi apresentada para qualquer quantia sem ser fundamentada e para qualquer ocasião possível.

Num determinado dia, numa reunião do comité, presidido por John Ohiorheneun e com a participação de Ibrahima Djibo, Leo Merores e Jessie Byron, abordou, entre outros, os assuntos seguintes:
“A descrição de serviços a ser empreendido pela RUTEC precisa ser mais explícita.
É requerida uma justificação pela escolha da RUTEC. É muito importante fazer avaliação. Necessidade de mais detalhes e dados no envolvimento vis-à-vis da RUTEC no estabelecimento dos CPC's. O que precisamente eles fizeram? Será bom o seu desempenho?
Havia uma pergunta no sentido de ser seguido o processo de cumprimento do sub-contratante. Não está claro a qual o ponto a Agência deve pedir desistência e se algum pedido não tem que ir para o Comité em subcontratos além de certa quantia.
A reunião também sentia que aquele precisava ter uma ideia na quantia de subcontrato envolvido.
Em conclusão, sentia o comité que a RUTEC parecia qualificada para o trabalho. Não obstante, para fins de transparência, todas as perguntas sobre o seu trabalho necessitavam de ser respondidas completamente. Além disso, um transparente e um melhor TDR eram justificados, dando maior ênfase aos serviços a ser providos por RUTEC. A reunião sugeriu que o TDR seja redigido novamente e que todas as recomendações feitas sejam incorporados no documento novo.’

Não há nenhuma evidência mostrando que estas recomendações foram incorporadas.

Uma carta datada de 27 de março de 1997 endereçada a Bernard Ntegeye, o Representante Residente-PNUD Angola, de Solomon Akpata, Chefe da II Divisão, Agência Regional para a África-PNUD Nova Iorque, pedindo aos contratantes/consultores para considerar o "pedido de desistência antes da RUTEC ser premiada com o subcontratado com componentes do anterior projecto (ANG 96/003-Centro de Produção da Comunidade no Huambo) que é executado pela UNOPS".
É pedido para remeter ao comité as Condições e Termos de Referências (TDR).

Não há nenhum TDR revisado.

Um Fax datado de 05 de setembro de 1997 de Dimitri Samaras (DimitriS@unops.org), Oficial em Custo, Divisão de África, UNOPS, Nova Iorque, para Bernard Ntgeye, RR PNUD Angola:

‘Nós gostaríamos de explicar que não estamos a tentar dificultar, mas que a RUTEC resistiu a responder repetidamente as nossas perguntas de um modo directo. …. RUTEC fez isto para ser extremamente difícil nós avaliarmos o valor do contrato e porque eles continuamente não têm provido um desorganizar das actividades e dos custos relacionados. Além disso, nós explicamos repetidamente a eles que nós não lhes podemos dar um pagamento adiantado igual ou para cima de 90% do valor do contrato.’

Ao mesmo tempo, o Governo Provincial do Huambo estava fazendo pedidos repetidos a Pierre Marie Achy, Conselheiro Internacional para o PRC no Huambo, sobre quando o projecto será implementado. Pierre Marie Achy declarou que a continuada demora na implementação deste projecto está causando embaraços ao PNUD.

Num dia entre novembro de1997 e fevereiro de 1998, o PNUD indicou a UNOPS que começasse as operações para implementação do projecto.
Normalmente para isto acontecer, um Documento de Projecto deve ser assinado pelo Governo, a agência de aplicação (UNOPS, neste caso) e o PNUD.

Tal documento assinado ainda não foi encontrado.

No dia 20 de fevereiro de 1998, o UNOPS e a RUTEC assinaram o contrato: C-971794 "ANG 96/003-Centro de Produção de Comunidade Huambo, Angola”.
A Descrição de Trabalho deste contrato é exactamente o que RUTEC ofereceu em janeiro de 1996 apesar de que a sua qualidade tinha sido questionada durante quase dois anos.
O contrato não faz nenhuma referência a qualquer Documento de Projecto e nenhuma meta específica e orientada é estabelecida para determinar os pagamentos.
Um total de quinze parciais por objectivos (etapas) é fixo. As primeiras cinco etapas são para a autorização do uso dos direitos de autor, o estabelecimento físico de um centro no Huambo, entrega de veículos e equipamento. As restantes etapas são simplesmente declaradas para "Administração do Centro" aprazadas em dois meses no qual será pago o valor de U$D 57 126.00 por etapa (cada dois meses).
O valor total do contrato é U$D 1 538 201.00.
O contrato é para uma fase inicial de 18 meses a terminar em 31 de maio 2000.
Antecipando para uma data mais cedo o inicio do projecto, a RUTEC pediu uma emenda ao contrato e no dia 11 de junho de 1998 assinou a antecipação do termino para 31 de janeiro de 2000 baseado na data de início em Setembro de 1998.

A RUTEC estava agora pronta para começar a fazer as coisas a sua maneira. O que isto provavelmente poderia ser, eles ainda não tinham mostrado.

Até ao momento o orçamento do projecto não tinha sido elaborado.

No dia 26 de março de 1998, Michel Balima (michel.balima@PNUD.org) Representante Deputado Residente Sênior-Projetos (SDDR-P) PNUD em Luanda, enviou um fax para Dimitri Samaras em Nova Iorque,:

"Referência de seu PS 101 relativo a prodoc para RUTEC. Por favor, note aquele RUTEC, entretanto concebido inicialmente como um projecto separado, foi entregue como parte integrante do ANG 96/100 Projecto de Reabilitação de Comunidade. É um subcontrato para ser financiado do orçamento de produção ANG 96/B01, orçamento linha 2101-Fundo de maneio para o PRC".

Para que projectos a serem implementados sob alçada do PRC, eles precisam de ser revisados e autorizados por um Comité Local de Avaliação de Projecto (LPAC) composto por representantes do Governo, o PRC e PNUD.

Não há nenhuma documentação assinada para indicar que isto já foi efectuado.

O Director Nacional para o PRC, Dr. João Ferreira reivindicou constantemente que o PRC não deu autorização para implementar este projecto. As razões por si declaradas são de que o projecto era muito caro para o que estava sendo oferecido e que dependia de contribuições do exterior em vez de iniciativas locais.

Não há nenhuma documentação disponível para apresentação em que tenha sido contactado o PRC para obter a autorização.

Durante o ano de 1998, PNUD fez duas transferências do Fundo de Maneio para o UNOPS, totalizando U$D 1 645 116.00. O UNOPS reteve 10% desta quantia como gastos “Apoio Administrativo e custos correntes” (AOS), a quantia de U$D 164 511.00.

No princípio-Montando O Projecto

No final de Maio de 1998 John Dommett, o Director da RUTEC, foi ao Huambo para começar a operacionalizar o projecto.
No dia 28 de maio de 1998, ele e Pierre Marie Achy (Representante do PNUD em Huambo) entrevistaram Leon Kukkuk que subsequentemente foi empregado como Director de Projecto. A ele fora entregue uma cópia do contrato com UNOPS com uma explicação como o projecto deveria ser implementado. O John Dommett explicou que o projecto consistiria num centro de treinamento e de produção para Micro Empresas. No final de um curso de duas semanas ter-se-ia a oportunidade de comprar um equipamento no seu valor comercial. Os equipamentos só serão produzidos pela RUTEC na sua fábrica em Joanesburgo, África do Sul. Beneficiários incluiriam qualquer pessoa que pudesse pagar o equipamento.

Embora céptico pela explicação, Leon Kukkuk pensava que isto poderia ser facilmente solucionado se pode-se obter do UNOPS o Documento Projecto com as referências necessárias.

Seguramente o sistema de ONU não iria pagar a uma companhia privada para tirar um enorme lucro numa das regiões mais pobres do mundo?

O Governo Provincial disponibilizou uma fábrica abandonada que precisava de limpeza e reabilitação. A intenção era trabalhar em tendas que seriam montadas no interior do edifício.

No dia 06 de junho de 1998, Leon Kukkuk viaja a Joanesburgo, África do Sul, onde RUTEC está baseada. Considerando que RUTEC tinha ganho o contrato, sem se enternecer com isto, e baseado na sua experiência em projectos semelhantes na África do Sul, Leon Kukkuk pediu informações sobre a capacidade administrativa e procedimentos de contabilidade, informações sobre procedimentos, descrições de trabalho estandardizados, etc. Isto é, na sua opinião, o essencial para a administração de qualquer projecto.

A RUTEC não tinha tais informações.

Todos os sistemas administrativos, contabilidade e sistemas de logística requeridos foram eventualmente criados por Leon Kukkuk, sem contribuição da RUTEC.

No dia 13 de junho de 1998 numa reunião com Michel Balima no PNUD em Luanda, Leon Kukkuk perguntou pelo Documento de Projecto e foi-lhe prometido uma cópia.

Ele só recebeu isto no dia 19 de setembro de 2000.

De 15 de junho de1998, começou o trabalho de reabilitação no edifício. Era esperado que a fase inicial, que incluiria reabilitação do edifício, importação de todo o equipamento, veículos, etc., treinamento de pessoal e preparação de material educacional, duraria quatro meses.
No Huambo foram empregados cinquenta e cinco trabalhadores temporários para começar a reabilitação do edifício. Foram contratadas várias companhias para prover diversos serviços.

Ao longo do mês junho de 1998 que foram processadas mais de 250 candidaturas e realizadas as entrevistas. Na última semana de junho de 1998, um Gerente de Centro, um Consultor e quatro Treinadores e também algum pessoal de apoio que assinaram um contrato inicial de três meses que incluía Termos e Condições e uma Descrição de Trabalho.

No final de junho de 1998, John Dommett foi ao Huambo para aprovar o pessoal empregado. Na reunião com a pessoal ele falou que a função primária deles seria gerir uma loja que tem de vender o mais possível equipamentos e matérias-primas.

Esta foi a última visita da RUTEC no Huambo em mais de dezanove meses.

O Consultor e quatro Treinadores foram por dois meses de treino a Joanesburgo no dia 10 de julho de 1998. Leon Kukkuk fez todos os preparativos de viagem.

Nesta fase tinha descoberto que era quase impossível obter quaisquer fundos a partir da RUTEC. A ausência destes fundos estava causando imensas dificuldades, aliado ao facto de que nem PNUD nem UNOPS assumiram responsabilidade em organizar o visto para o Leon Kukkuk como é especificado no contrato. Ele permaneceu sem documentos jurídicos até 15 de março de 2000.

Os fundos pedidos para pagar o pessoal um adiantamento de salários antes de viajar, ao Leon Kukkuk fora dito que isto não seria possível porque a RUTEC não tinha ninguém disponível para viajar a Angola. Ao pessoal será dado um adiantamento dos salários após a sua chegada a Joanesburgo.

No final de julho de 1998, Leon Kukkuk e Carlos Alberto Gomes, o Gerente de Centro, viajam a Joanesburgo.
Era suposto que o Carlos Gomes receberia um curso de formação de administração de duas semanas. Ele não recebeu isto. Nenhum dos dois fez qualquer trabalho que justificasse ou que poderia ser considerado como contribuição para o estabelecimento de um centro no Huambo. Esta visita de duas semanas foi por eles considerada um desperdício do seu tempo.
Em Joanesburgo, não foi dado ao pessoal o alojamento e comida conforme fora prometida, mas só alojamento. A eles também não fora pago qualquer adiantamento de salário como fora prometido, por esta causa, eles tiveram de sobreviver duas semanas com chá quente e biscoitos que lhes eram dados no curso.

Para ter os salário do pessoal pago adiantadamente, Leon Kukkuk contactou John Dommett que durante a discussão declarou que o pessoal seria tratado pela RUTEC tendo em conta as práticas semelhantes desta na África do Sul, isto é, seriam pagos só uma parte da comissão das propinas dos estudantes e dos equipamentos vendidos. Quando lhe foi explicado que o projecto teria que gerar U$D 3 milhões durante 18 de meses para cobrir salários, então ele cedeu. Não obstante, em Outubro de 1999, Leon Kukkuk recebeu documentos que o indicavam a implementar este sistema. Foi enviado ao Huambo e arquivado. Efectivamente o que a RUTEC queria era alcançar o maior lucro possível do projecto no Huambo, para além do U$D 1.5 Milhão que eles já estavam recebendo do UNOPS - tudo virtualmente a nenhum custo para eles.

Leon Kukkuk preparou uma projecção de orçamento detalhado que previa U$D 50 000.00 para construção, e despesas operacionais mínimas de U$D 12 500.00 por mês.

Não há nenhuma razão em acreditar que alguém da RUTEC prestou alguma atenção a este documento.
Um pedido do Leon Kukkuk para abrir uma conta bancária em Angola foi negado com o argumento de que isto seria muito caro.
Não estava claro quem na RUTEC seria o responsável pelo projecto. Também não estava claro quem teria habilidades apropriadas e experiência para ser responsável por tal projecto ou de contribuir de qualquer forma para ele.
Leon Kukkuk, numa reunião com o pessoal da RUTEC em Joanesburgo, mencionou que precisaria de uma melhoria significativa na competência de RUTEC se eles quisessem administrar um projecto prospero no Huambo, Angola.
As melhorias no desempenho da RUTEC consistiram em pedir ao Leon Kukkuk, que no final de agosto de 1998, viajasse do Huambo a Joanesburgo a fim de organizar a extensão dos vistos para o pessoal angolano que lá estava tendo treinamento.

A sua explicação era novamente o facto de que eles não tinham pessoal para tratar isso.

Em duas ocasiões foi pedido também ao Leon Kukkuk para viajar a Joanesburgo com a finalidade de controlar a logística de envio de aproximadamente quatro contentores de carga de eventual equipamento para o Huambo.

Uma vez mais, a sua explicação disto era o facto de que eles não têm pessoal para fazer isto.

No momento, o Leon Kukkuk estava dirigindo o trabalho de reabilitação e de construção no Huambo, logística em Joanesburgo e tentando descobrir quais seriam os arranjos de administração para o projecto em Luanda. Ele não tinha nenhum documento jurídico e não estava recebendo virtualmente nenhum apoio do UNOPS pelo argumento destes de que era um projecto do PNUD e nenhum apoio de PNUD pelo argumento que era um projecto do UNOPS.

Os contactos com o UNOPS ao longo de 1998 foi considerado informal, porque Lawrence Doczy, o seu Representante em Luanda, esteve doente a maior parte do tempo e fora de Angola. O Leon Kukkuk nunca teve qualquer oportunidade de falar com ele.
Obter fundos da RUTEC provou ser uma tarefa impossível e que nunca foi resolvido. Depois de pedir fundos para mais um mês e explicar que a falta dos mesmos era um problema agudo, Leon Kukkuk, no dia 13 de setembro de 1998, foi solicitado pela RUTEC para viajar a Joanesburgo a busca desses fundos. A sua explicação de que os trabalhos de construção no Huambo eram extremamente difíceis, foi simplesmente despachado considerando que estes trabalhos eram de pouca importância. Também estava programado que o pessoal regressaria a Luanda no dia 20 de setembro de 1998. A acomodação em Luanda, como também transporte para Huambo precisava ser organizado. Isto não seria possível sem fundos. A RUTEC manteve a afirmação que eles não têm pessoal que poderiam viajar a Angola. Eles também não estavam preparados para entregar qualquer fundo a nenhum elemento do pessoal angolano para levar consigo para Angola.

Por causa disto, Leon Kukkuk, sem fundos ou qualquer apoio, viajou para Joanesburgo organizando um voo através das Forças para Paz da ONU (MONUA), chegando lá na manhã de 15 de setembro de 1998. No dia 17 de setembro de 1998 ele voltou com o voo da MONUA a Luanda. Nos dois dias em Joanesburgo só falou com John Dommett durante dez minutos antes de ir para o aeroporto, e sem ter recebido nenhum fundo.

No dia 19 de setembro de 1998, Leon Kukkuk escreveu uma carta a RUTEC e enviou-a por fax, onde formulou protestos muito fortes e queixas da falta de competência destes nos assuntos administrativos, até mesmo básicos, falta de apoio para o projecto e relutância extrema em fornecer fundos para trabalho já em andamento. Uma cópia desta carta foi dirigida para Michel Balima onde pedia orientação de que como estes assuntos deveriam ser solucionados.

Nenhuma resposta sólida foi recebida da RUTEC ou do PNUD. Mike Klosterman, Gerente de Operações da RUTEC, escreveu uma carta na qual ele mencionou que RUTEC estava tentando implementar um projecto numa área onde eles não têm nenhuma experiência. Mas também não ofereceu nenhuma solução específica aos dados assuntos levantados. Em dezembro de 1998 tinha-se acabado a curta carreira por ele vivida na RUTEC.

No dia 20 de setembro de 1998 o pessoal angolano voltou do curso de treinamento de dois meses. Com eles trouxeram U$D 4 700.00 dos U$D 25 000.00 que fora pedido.

Numa reunião realizada com eles no dia 21 de setembro de 1998, eles reivindicaram, e a sua impressão no geral da RUTEC era negativa e que eles tinham muito pouca confiança que RUTEC poderia administrar algum projecto no Huambo. Fora pedido ao Leon Kukkuk para encaminhar estes assuntos e os solucionar antes do projecto ser implementado.

No final de 1998 a situação de segurança em Angola estava se deteriorando. No princípio de setembro de 1998, o UNOPS instrui que a RUTEC suspendesse todas as actividades de projecto no Huambo que requeressem investimento de capital. Actividades que não requeressem investimento de capital e as actividades fora do Huambo (como treinamento de pessoal e preparação de material de treino) poderiam continuar.

No fim de outubro de 1998, a UNOPS tinha dado um acordo verbal de que o projecto poderia continuar. Eles prometeram que seria confirmado por escrito.

No momento a maioria das operações de preparação foram cumpridas no Huambo. O Equipamento em Joanesburgo estava acumulado e pronto a ser transportado por estrada a Kaháma, sul de Angola, e de lá por via aérea para o Huambo.
Leon Kukkuk e Carlos Gomes dirigiram dois veículos, com uma escolta da MONUA, de Luanda para Huambo. Chegaram ao Huambo no dia 05 de novembro de1998 naquela que seria a última escolta da ONU e a última escolta em mais de um ano.
Em 04 dezembro de 1998, a RUTEC recebeu instruções escritas do UNOPS para continuar com o projecto, mostrando a lógica de tomar decisões de Nova Iorque.

No dia 05 de dezembro de 1998, contudo, outra guerra total começou em Angola.

As Guerras, quase por definição, são tempos de insegurança e incerteza. Considerando o estado avançado do planeado e a autorização do UNOPS, Leon Kukkuk ficou em contacto diário com John Dommett de RUTEC, Michel Balima de PNUD e José Salema de UNOPS em Luanda, na busca da orientação do melhor curso de acção. Naturalmente, eles estavam na incerteza de que como proceder, mas mencionaram que tal uma decisão seria provavelmente melhor feita no terreno.

Logicamente, especialmente à nova realidade, o projecto precisou ser extensivamente repensado. O resto dos fundos, mais de U$D 1.2 milhão nesta fase, provavelmente poderia ser gasto melhor se utilizado no desastre humanitário que estava a ponto de cair no Huambo e em Angola.

Este acordo não permitia este tipo de flexibilidade.
Leon Kukkuk, talvez um pouco irresponsavelmente, decidiu prosseguir. Para alcançar isto, ele perguntou e subsequentemente recebeu todo o apoio do pessoal angolano.

De 09 a 12 de dezembro de 1998, foram recebidos quatro aviões/voos em equipamento.

Na altura, milhares de pessoas corriam para o aeroporto na tentativa de sair em qualquer voo do Huambo para qualquer lugar. O aeroporto e um quilometro no perímetro em redor, era fortemente guardado pela polícia e o exército. Huambo foi bombardeado e atacado em várias ocasiões. Ao inicio de janeiro de 1999, dois aviões de ONU foram abatidos fora da cidade. Chuva torrencial caía quase diariamente.

No dia 05 de janeiro de 1999, MONUA, as Forças de Paz da ONU, partiram numa escolta para Benguela, no litoral.

Em 25 de janeiro de 1999, o Centro era estabelecido e pronto começar a funcionar.

Nenhum dos assuntos administrativos e as duvidas que haviam sido gerados nos meses anteriores estavam resolvidos.

Trabalhando Num Projecto de Desenvolvimento Numa Guerra

Uma das primeiras e das maiores vitórias que o projecto alcançou, de uma grande dimensão que fez recuar todas as suas subsequentes calamidades, era o psicológico. Embora tivesse muitos altos e baixos e embora alcançasse poucos resultados que valessem a pena, nunca foi esquecido como se estabeleceu e começou a operar numa altura quando Angola foi mergulhada numa guerra devastadora pela segunda vez em menos de uma década.

Ninguém tinha alguma experiência em Micro Empresas. Considerando a falta de apoio técnico da RUTEC e o facto que o treinamento recebido em Joanesburgo ser considerado largamente irrelevante para Angola, tudo teve que ser aprendido desde os princípios mais básicos.

Ao final de março 1999 Leon Kukkuk viajou para Luanda. Era sua intenção para se encontrar com John Dommett (RUTEC), Michel Balima (PNUD) e José Salema (UNOPS, Novo Representante, Luanda) em Luanda para discutir o projecto.
Coincidentemente Michel Balima e aparentemente Dimitri Samaras (UNOPS, Nova Iorque) viajam ao Huambo no dia 31 de março de 1999 para visitar o projecto. Embora Michel Balima parecia estar contente com o que ele viu, não há nenhum relatório de missão disponível relativo a esta visita.
Em Luanda Leon Kukkuk, José Salema e John Dommett reuniram nesse mesmo dia.
John Dommett, na altura já tinha vendido 75% da RUTEC ao Banco de Desenvolvimento de Terra e a União Nacional dos Trabalhadores de Minas na África do Sul por cerca de U$D 3 milhões.

Neste dia foram levantados os assuntos seguintes:

As tendas provaram ser incomodante quente, molhado e insalubre. Fundos deveriam ser disponibilizados para estas serem substituídas por estruturas que usam tecnologia local? Alternativamente, deveriam ser usados centros já existentes. Isto espalharia o impacto geográfico do projecto.

Resposta: O uso de tendas nos projectos era altamente lucrativo para a RUTEC. Outra alternativa não deveria ser considerada. Só podem ser usados centros novos se forem assinados pertinentes contratos com UNOPS.

A maior parte do equipamento fornecidos pela RUTEC são impróprios. Muitos são de baixa qualidade e chegaram quebrados. Isto, como também o alto preço (U$D1 000.00-U$D 5 000.00 por equipamento) do equipamento faz isso altamente improvável para que qualquer dos beneficiários pudesse compra-lo ou de que qualquer financiamento para isto poderia ser conseguido. Seria possível produzir localmente equipamento?

Resposta: Produção local de equipamento não pode ser considerada. Porém, se qualquer pessoa estivesse preparado para assinar um acordo de licenciamento, equipamento poderia ser montado no Huambo. (O equipamento que foi produzido pela RUTEC ou estava dentro do domínio público ou com violações de direito autorais. Existe também evidência isso sugere que RUTEC enviasse ao Huambo deliberadamente equipamento que estava quebrado para encurtar custos.).

A f alta de fundos foi discutida, mas nunca solucionada.

Nenhum dos arranjos administrativos foi discutido. José Salema disse que este é um assunto que deveria ser tratado com o PNUD. A data do final do projecto precisava ser determinada por acordo. Este deveria ter sido a 30 de junho de 2000. Nunca foi formalmente concordado.

No princípio de abril de 1999, Leon Kukkuk reuniu com Teresa Felix (teresa.felix@UNDP.org) o novo Oficial Nacional de Programa do PNUD, Luanda.
Ela o informou de que ele precisava trabalhar mais intimamente com o PRC e também pediu relatórios mensais que contenham um resumo de actividades e as contas. Isto foi subsequentemente enviado mensalmente. Não há nenhuma evidência para sugerir que qualquer pessoa já os leu.

Ao regressar ao Huambo, Leon Kukkuk reuniu com o Governador Provincial, Paulo Kassoma e o Director de Planeamento, Henrique Barbosa. Sentia-se que o projecto, como foi concebido, seguiria o mesmo caminho dos outros projectos da Organização Internacional do Trabalho(OIT) e UNOPS onde muito dinheiro é gasto em treinamento, mas que nenhum novo emprego é criado.
Foi decidido então que o centro proverá treinamento e apoiará novos negócios como também apoio logístico e aconselhamento pelo menos durante o primeiro ano. A Produção local será encorajada e equipamento, até onde for possível, será produzido localmente.
Um Conselho de administração local foi criado para seguir o centro.
O Governador mudou o nome do centro para "Centro de Formação e Fomento de Micro Indústrias do Huambo - MICROFORM".
Tinha se tornado agora efectivamente numa iniciativa local apoiada pelo Governo Provincial e com um grande apoio da Development Workshop, um ONG canadiana com muitos anos de experiência em Angola.
Eles tornaram-se agora efectivamente responsáveis pelo projecto. Antes, os reais donos do projecto tinham sido excluídos por falta de interesse e competência.
O Leon Kukkuk foi encarregado, novamente para aproximar o PNUD, UNOPS e RUTEC para melhorar as questões de administração, especificamente a avaliação e monitoria, como também assegurar ajuda técnica significante e fundos para o centro. Ele sugeriu que isto poderia ser melhor com todos os parceiros juntos.

A RUTEC estava passando por suas próprias dificuldades que resultaram numa mudança espectacular de pessoal sénior. Como sempre, o PNUD ficou mais preocupado como justificar a sua existência e pela chegada, no final de 1999, do novo Representante Residente, Zoraida Mesa, que era a responsável de repor o PNUD novamente na linha. Ela duraria um pouco mais de um ano. UNOPS tropeçou como sempre, não sentia que este projecto era de sua responsabilidade, e no fim de janeiro de 2000 saiu de Angola, esperamos que é para sempre.

No princípio de outubro de 1999, depois de uma discussão com Buswe Yafele, o novo Director da RUTEC, Leon Kukkuk começou a planificar uma missão para o Huambo. Estas coisas deveriam ser organizadas pelo PNUD, como um assunto de rotina, mas o PNUD raramente tem pessoal que trabalhe fora dos seus escritórios em Luanda e raramente gaste mais de algumas horas no interior do país.

No dia 14 janeiro de 2000, Leon Kukkuk reuniu com João Ferreira, o Director de PRC, no escritório dele em Luanda. Dr. Ferreira reiterou a posição dele ao projecto como foi planificado originalmente. Por causa dos resultados alcançados no Huambo, porém, era imperativo que fosse avaliado e elaborada uma decisão relativa ao seu futuro. Era suposto que haveria uma reunião tripartida a ser organizada por PNUD.

A missão aconteceu no dia 31 de março de 2000 composta por Representantes do PRC, PNUD e RUTEC.
Buzwe Yafele (RUTEC) estava principalmente preocupado como tentar vender 10 toneladas de farinha de trigo da África do Sul para o centro. Era suposto que o centro devia procurar fundos para isto. Ele mencionou que pudessem ser discutidos os assuntos que a administração do centro estava levantando desde que fosse recebida uma garantia que o contrato da RUTEC seria estendido.
Francisco de Almeida (fransisco.almeida@UNDP.org), Assistente do Deputado Representante Residente do PNUD em Luanda, várias vezes perguntou porquê que o centro parecia ser tão pobre assim se tinham sido arranjados fundos suficientes disponíveis para sua administração. Ele não recebeu nenhuma resposta e não procurou ir ao fundo do assunto.

No dia 03 de abril de 2000 uma reunião foi realizada em Luanda. Nenhum resultado conclusivo foi obtido desta reunião. Vagueou-se um pouco pelas actas escritas em abril de 2001 num esforço para determinar o que foi dito na ocasião. Nada.

No final de junho de 2000 deveria terminar o projecto, mas esta data não tinha sido oficialmente determinada. Alguma menção foi feita que seguramente na reunião tripartida e avaliação marcada para maio de 2000 iria determinar o futuro do projecto.
Em menos de três meses para a dita reunião, era imperativo que uma decisão concreta fosse alcançada rapidamente.

No final de abril de 2000 o PRC emitiu um relatório que declarou que o projecto será avaliado com uma visão para extensão, e que um projecto com linhas semelhantes será planificado para Benguela, a ser implementado em dezembro de 2000.

No final de abril de 2000, Buswe Yafele havia sido despedido da RUTEC e sido substituído por Boris Kamstra.

O Que Alcançou o Projecto?

Esta é uma das perguntas mais difíceis de responder. Não há nenhuma informação disponível de qualquer avaliação objectiva e competente.
Qualquer tentativa para avaliar as suas actividades tem que levar em conta os arranjos de administração muito complexos e um olhar profundo de como os fundos foram gastos.
A parte do centro no Huambo que tinha mantido registos meticulosos, contas delineadas não existem. Contas mais ou menos específicas estão disponíveis. Para ficar mais claro foi elaborado um breve sumário testamento:

Num dia em 1998, o PNUD transferiu uma quantia de U$D 1 645 116.00 do Fundo de Maneio para o UNOPS.
O UNOPS, como de costume, reteve 10% desta quantia como gastos Administrativos e acima do Apoio: U$D 164 511.00.
De junho de1998 a junho de 2000, UNOPS pagou um total de U$D 1 505 521.00 a RUTEC em vinte fases ao longo de um período de dois anos.

Durante o mesmo período de tempo o Centro no Huambo tinha gasto um total de U$D 235 152.00. Isto inclui toda a construção, reabilitação, administração, viagens internacionais, salários locais e despesas operacionais que é o equivalente a 15% do orçamento total disponível.
Desta quantia U$D 227 000.00 provenientes da RUTEC e para um equilíbrio dos gastos foram emprestados por Leon Kukkuk um valor total de U$D 8 152.00.
A RUTEC também proveu equipamento para o centro. Embora que factura deles tenha falhas, reflecte uma quantia de U$D 285 000.00.

Isto significa que uma quantia em redor de U$D 1 milhão, ou seja, dois terços dos fundos disponíveis, precisam ser explicados.

O UNOPS pagou de certeza este dinheiro a RUTEC.

O que a RUTEC fez com isto?

Uma série de e-mails entre Teresa Felix (PNUD) e Boris Kamstra (RUTEC) extraiu as respostas seguintes:

24 de fevereiro de 2001:
"Tenho receio que esta informação eu não a possuo. Eu só entrei na Rutec no final deste projecto e terei que encontrar os arquivos pertinentes para estabelecer o que foi fornecido e o seu custo.… Adquirir informações mais adiantes será difícil e não é possível antes de pelo menos quarta-feira, porque eu terei que contactar John Dommett que está em Portugal (eu penso)".

05 de março de 2001:
“O que eu tenho é o que está registado pela companhia na altura do projecto. O sistema usado não separou os preços de custo, como tal é muito difícil de alocar alguns custos ao projecto e outros não, especialmente não sabendo a história do projecto ou quais pessoas foram empregadas para este projecto.

Eu sou capaz, por alguns extractos bancários de achar alguns custos específicos como: voos para Angola e pagamentos do telefone satélite. Mas isto de qualquer forma nos dá resposta a qualquer quadro mais claro do que foi gasto neste projecto.

Sinto muito eu não posso ser mais específico. Não tendo a informação à mão e nenhuma ideia da história do projecto torna isto impossível para que possa adquirir os números exactos”.

Ao longo do projecto (junho de 1998 -junho de 2000) os salários do pessoal local atrasavam dois a três meses antes de ser liquidados, com a excepção de novembro e de dezembro de 1999, e também em janeiro de 2000 quando Leon Kukkuk pagou os salários com os seus recursos próprios.
Leon Kukkuk durante o mesmo período de emprego (junho de 1998-junho de 2000) recebeu salários pagos, depois muitos dificuldades de receber, em de março de 1999, fevereiro de 2000, abril de 2001 e junho de 2001. Na hora em que permanece incerto se o seu salário esta actualizado ou não.

Deixando por enquanto de parte este assunto, é óbvio que o projecto precisa ser avaliado em dois níveis.

Primeiro, o PNUD e UNOPS num acordo com a RUTEC, num valor de mais de U$D 1.5 milhão, que é por nós considerado um fracasso absoluto e espectacular que nunca deverá ser repetido. Nós estaremos a olhar como PNUD procederá para corrigir este erro.

Num segundo nível, é preciso considerar o outro projecto ‘MICROFORM’, em que todas as intenções e finalidades são uma iniciativa completamente local e o que conseguiu alcançar com U$D 227 000.00.

As suas realizações estão muito brevemente resumidas :

Foram desenvolvidas várias oportunidades de Micro Empreendimento a partir de princípios básicos, usando recursos e tecnologia locais. Falta de fundos foi o principal constrangimento para a expansão.
Equipamento, adaptado às realidades locais e frequentemente de qualidade superior, foram produzidas localmente. Produção foi limitada por falta de fundos.
Produtos novos ou produtos que foram previamente importados começaram a aparecer no mercado. Falta de fundos limitou esta expansão.
Em dois anos, aproximadamente 250 pequenas empresas foram criadas. Aproximadamente 500 pessoas ganharam emprego por actividades indirectas - os fornecedores de matéria-prima, vendedores, transportadores, etc.
Foi visto como o veículo para o futuro desenvolvimento de Huambo que poderia beneficiar comunidades vulneráveis urbanas e rurais.

Foi calculado que um eficiente projecto, criaria num ano mais de mil empresas com um orçamento de U$D 350 000.00 por ano. Foi localmente considerado que com a participação da RUTEC não só seria caro, mas também prejudicial ao projecto. Com fundos disponíveis, numa iniciativa local poderia ajudar até 50 000 pessoas directamente e indirectamente num período à volta de 4 anos e teria um impacto significante na Província.

E sobre o futuro?

Embora não oficialmente confirmado, a fase piloto do projecto acabaria no final de junho de 2000. Em qualquer eventualidade, era bem provável que fundos ultrapassariam esse tempo.

Uma decisão deveria ser feita relativamente ao seu futuro. Esta é a responsabilidade do PNUD, como dono do projecto.

Várias opções devem ser consideradas, levando em conta os desejos da comunidade local e do Governo Provincial como também interesse dos doadores e a disponibilidade de fundos.
Estas opções incluem:

Encerramento total do projecto.
Continuação sob mesmas condições.
Continuação sob novas modificações.

Cada uma destas opções teria consequências e custos associados que precisam ser administrados. Uma decisão relativa aos veículos e outros activos só podem ser tomados pelo Representante Residente do PNUD baseado em recomendações Comité de Pesquisa de Propriedade Local do PNUD.
O Pessoal precisava de ser informado, pelo menos com antecedência de 3 meses , se os seus contratos seriam terminados ou seriam estendidos e as remunerações necessárias a serem feitas de acordo com Lei angolana do trabalho.
Na antecipação, Leon Kukkuk pediu uma transferência da RUTEC de um valor de U$D 45 000.00 para pagar os habituais salários atrasados e outras dívidas. Ele recebeu U$D 19 125.00 da quantia pedida no princípio de junho de 2000. Um pedido adicional para U$D 25 000.00 resultou no recibo de U$D 9 980.00 no final de julho. Contribuindo U$D 5 000.00 dos seus recursos próprios ele pôde então pagar salários até o fim de julho de 2000, enquanto ficava a quantia acima de U$D 100 000.00 em contas não pagadas e compromissos.

O Governo Provincial estava fazendo muita pressão ao Leon Kukkuk para encontrar uma solução. Isso significou que ele foi carregando em frente toda a responsabilidade, mas sem nenhuma autoridade. Em dois anos, os seus esforços não mostraram nenhum resultado, mas como estava se acabando o contrato da RUTEC, várias opções se apresentaram.

Com promessas vagas vindas de PNUD que o projecto seria avaliado, vagueou num estado nubloso. Esperando o melhor, o pessoal continuou funcionamento sem contratos ou salários. Este era um projecto que tinha alcançado muitos resultados positivos debaixo de circunstâncias extremamente difíceis. Muitos doadores demonstraram um interesse em financiar, se os problemas externos pudessem ser resolvidos. Ninguém quis ser envolvido em quaisquer "acordos engraçados com UNOPS e RUTEC". Embora eles permanecem anónimos por enquanto, também há uma forte convicção entre certas pessoas que deveria ser removido o envolvimento de PNUD no projecto: "que é o beijo de morte para qualquer projecto".

A partir do final de abril de 2000, o Leon Kukkuk gastou mais uma vez o seu tempo, não com o trabalho que ele foi empregado para fazer, mas compensar, como um indivíduo, a falta de competência de organizações como o PNUD, UNOPS e RUTEC. Um projecto no qual supostamente a responsabilidade era distribuída mais de três entidades jurídicas veio agora descansar nos ombros de um indivíduo privado.

Não vamos perder tempo falar sobre as maquinações destas três organizações para evitar as consequências das suas faltas consideráveis. Nem nas suas maquinações para buscar créditos dos sucessos do projecto seja descrito em qualquer grande detalhe.

Noventa nove por cento de correspondência, e-mail, telefonemas e conversações encetadas pelo Leon Kukkuk não obtiveram qualquer resposta.

Dentro deste mar de indiferença pode ser resumidos brevemente os seguintes eventos:

MICROFORM: Motivado por promessas vagas do PNUD, o centro tropeçou de um plano de contingência para o próximo. Pessoal trabalhou sem contratos ou salários. Leon Kukkuk perdeu tempo de 19 de setembro a 10 de outubro de 2000 em Luanda, mas voltou a Huambo sem alcançar qualquer significante resultado. No dia 31de janeiro de 2001 o centro fechou entre consideráveis caos e sentimento de dor. Antes do fecho final, o Leon Kukkuk tentou obter apoio do Governo Provincial e outras ONGs. Henrique Barbosa (o Director de Planeamento) disse que este tipo de projecto só poderá ser fechado depois de uma avaliação e autorização do Ministro do Planeamento. Alberta Gomes (Representante ADRA no Huambo, uma ONG angolana) e Carlos Figueiredo (Representante da Development Workshop no Huambo), ambos os membros do conselho directivo de MICROFORM, opuseram-se veementemente a tal um encerramento.
Que prosseguiu de qualquer maneira.
O problema maior era o que fazer com quantidade significativa de equipamentos. Estes foram divididos em quatro categorias:
Os que podem ser distribuídos a beneficiários seleccionados.
Os que podem ser distribuídos ao Ministério de Agricultura, Centros de Treinamento e Pesquisa e ONG.
Os que podem ser vendidos.
Os que podem ser armazenados para possível uso num pendente futuro.

Parte dos salários em atraso do Pessoal era liquidado na medida do possível com a venda de equipamento e caso nenhum movimento positivo relativo ao projecto, o restante equipamento seria vendido até ao final de fevereiro de 2001 .
Em 11 de fevereiro de 2001, Leon Kukkuk viajou num voo militar a Luanda.

RUTEC: A RUTEC pensava que com o seu projecto “positivo”, o projecto seria estendido como um assunto de rotina. Eles não entendiam porque que a RUTEC com um tal próspero projecto no Huambo, não estava sendo apoiado. Disseram-lhes que a RUTEC necessariamente não era bem visto como parte do projecto no Huambo e deveriam elaborar uma proposta construtiva de como eles poderiam continuar a ter um papel. Esta proposta deveria responder a pergunta de como envolvimento de RUTEC poderia contribuir para o projecto como também endereço a percepção que o seu envolvimento até a data era não-existente e muito caro.
A sua resposta: “Para o futuro do projecto eu não sei o suficiente do que vocês querem e como é que a Rutec poderá ajudar e poder avançar um plano coerente para o futuro”.
No dia 10 de novembro de 2000, quando a UNOPS enviou as instruções ao Leon Kukkuk para terminar o projecto: “Por favor, me manda qualquer comentário que você pode ter sobre isto, e entra qualquer em acção que você julga apropriado e determinado que nós não estaremos em condições de o apoiar financeiramente até termos novo um acordo”.

UNOPS: UNOPS não tem nenhuma presença em Angola desde janeiro de 2000. Eles não fizeram entrega alguma do projecto antes de partir, presumivelmente porque eles achavam que não era o seu projecto.
Num fax 01 de novembro de 2000, enviado por Dimitri Samaras a Boris Kamstra, RUTEC recebeu ordens para terminar o projecto imediatamente.
Uma nota diz: “para implementar os pontos 3 e 4 acima, UNOPS contactará PNUD/CO para iniciar nosso procedimento interno das ONU para transferência de equipamento de projecto para o Governo e identificação da entidade designada por último beneficiário (s); a transferência oficial acontecerá em uma decisão do Coordenador Residente de ONU baseado numa recomendação do Comité de Pesquisa da Propriedade Local PNUD (LPSB).’

É quase desnecessário dizer que nada estava terminado. Muita correspondência enviada por Leon Kukkuk a busca de claridade relativamente aos aspectos práticos e logísticos de tal uma transferência permanecem sem resposta.

Em 15 de maio de 2001 Leon Kukkuk falou com Dimitri Samaras por telefone. Seguir é uma cópia das notas dele na conversação:
UNOPS para desembolsar o projecto e não para implementar.
Pierre Marie Achy para autorizar pagamentos, depois disso PNUD RR.
Não teve boas relações com John Dommett, e quase cancelou contrato.
Está disponível ajudar a achar soluções.
A forma de tratamento do PNUD é retaliativa, mas aquela administração nova poderia ter uma atitude diferente.
RUTEC era um contratado pre-selecionado, não seguiu os procedimentos habituais.
UNOPS foi contactado à última hora no projecto e o seu papel nunca foi clarificado completamente.
Quando ele tentou adquirir ligação com John Dommett para discutir soluções, lhe foi dito que esta pessoa não estava mais na RUTEC e achou que a nova administração tem muito pouca ideia sobre projecto.

PNUD: No dia 13 de julho de 2000, Francisco de Almeida (PNUD) escreveu um e-mail a Teresa Felix (PNUD):
“Por favor, prepara a nota para o arquivo da reunião da nossa viagem ao Huambo com o Director de RUTEC para estar pronto o mais tardar segunda-feira. Este assunto precisa ser finalizado antes da partida de Sr. Balima, marcado para o dia 18. Por favor, dê prioridade de topo a este assunto para pôr o nosso escritório no lado seguro. A propósito o que está acontecendo com o Leon?
Por favor, peça que venha nos ver, assim nós podemos discutir o futuro do projecto tendo em conta nossa situação financeira atual”.

Novamente não será desperdiçado nenhum tempo ou espaço para dizer que isto não foi feito.

Como parte da Revisão do País, a Equipa de Revisão visitou o projecto no Huambo no dia 22 de outubro de 2000, e ficou informado das dificuldades. Como resultado Zoraida Mesa, o PNUD RR, escreveu um memorando não assinado a James Curry (james.curry@UNDP.org), Director do Escritório de Auditoria e Revisão de Desempenho que em resposta do dia 14 de janeiro de 2001 fez estas perguntas a Bisrat Aklilu, Deputado Director Executivo, UNOPS, Nova Iorque. A resposta dele no dia 14 de Fevereiro de 2001 demonstra aquele UNOPS tinha perdido qualquer ligação ténue que eles já podem ter estado usando este projecto ao fim de 1998.

Em 04 de novembro de 2000 Stan Nkwain (stan.nkwain@UNDP.org) Deputado Representante de Residente Sênior-Projetos, PNUD, Luanda, foi ao Huambo e discutiu o projecto com Leon Kukkuk. No final do dia ele voltou a Luanda com alguns documentos e uma promessa que uma futura resposta será dada dentro de duas semanas.

Estes documentos desapareceram e nenhuma resposta ainda foi dada.

No final de março de 2001 Leon Kukkuk e Teresa Felix apresentaram o projecto a Michel Falavigna (michel.falavigna@UNDP.org), o Conselheiro de Programa Regional do PNUD, Nova Iorque.

Como é habitual isto não foi mencionado no relatório “regresso-para-escritório” de sua parte, nem lá existe qualquer avaliação.

Leon Kukkuk foi contratado pelo PRC de 01 de março 2001 a 30 de junho de 2001 encarregado do seguinte:

Preparar a documentação pertinente para os auditores, como motivação para uma avaliação detalhada e auditoria do projecto.
Preparar um Relatório Final e Inventário de equipamento actualmente em Huambo
Preparar um rascunho de Documento de Projecto para uma possível continuação do projecto.

Na preparação do plano de trabalho de Leon Kukkuk houve uma troca de cartas que a seguir é descrita:
“Antes de ser aprovado este plano, pode você clarificar o que quer dizer por “ encerramento legal do projecto?”.

Obrigado.

Querido Sr Nkwain,

Muito obrigado pela sua pergunta que tentarei clarificar sob meu ponto de vista.

Para além dos beneficiários e doadores que são uma prioridade importante há vários parceiros que de facto têm uma estaca no projecto. Estes são PRC, o Governo Provincial e claro que UNOPS, PNUD e RUTEC.

Em julho de 2000, quando o contrato com RUTEC estava se acabando, e nós não estávamos recebendo nenhuma instrução de concreto do UNOPS ou PNUD, nós fomos em frente com três opções:

Abandonar o projecto.
Fechar o projecto e armazenar tudo. (ou entrega-lo ao governo que estava pedindo com base em documentação)
Continuar como melhor podermos /pendentes numa solução.

Estas opções foram apresentadas às autoridades locais que me falaram que opções um e dois seria ilegal em termos de procedimento reconhecido. (tenham em conta que eles querem uma continuação do projecto e é muito difícil de ter o seu apoio por qualquer coisa que seja diferente )

Quando nós fechamos ao no final de janeiro de 2001, foi dito uma vez mais que isto é considerado a uma acção ilegal da minha parte, porque era uma decisão unilateral, sem qualquer apoio de documentação ou instruções das autoridades propriamente reconhecidas. Disseram-me que estas instruções deveriam estar baseadas em decisões feitas entre os donos do projecto em Luanda e que o governador deveria ser informado primeiro. Não seguindo este procedimento, poderia ser intentada contra mim uma acção judicial. (Eu fiquei limitado em minha casa durante dois dias como consequência de decisão do fecho do projecto)

Neste contexto o que seria então encerramento legal?

Algo que não é determinado por mim unilateralmente.
Resolução do sentimento de pesar considerável que actualmente existe relativamente ao caos e desordem debaixo do qual este projecto funcionou e fechou.
Baseado na documentação que reflecte a decisão dos donos do projecto.
Informando as autoridades locais.

Como já aconteceram muitos enganos e decisões dolorosas, eu penso que o fechamento legal também deveria incluir algum tipo de controle de danos para recuperar a credibilidade”.

Uma vez mais toda a informação disponível foi apresentado a Bereket Sletzion (bereket.sletzion@UNDP.org) o auditor de PNUD que aparentemente nos meados de junho de 2001 informou aos seus superiores que ele sentia que uma auditoria era necessária para uma avaliação concreta.

Aos 27 de junho de 2001 Leon Kukkuk distribuiu o rascunho do Relatório Final e da Proposta de Projecto. O rascunho da Proposta de Projecto estava completo e preparada para consulta com o Governo Provincial de Huambo, Development Workshop, ADRA e Cooperação Suíça e uma cópia também foi enviada a cada um deles para avaliação. Eles queriam com urgência saber que possibilidades futuras existem e para a sua própria planificação estratégica.

A missão de avaliação foi assegurada para 21-24 de agosto de 2001. Nenhum relatório de missão está disponível, mas será respondida quando o recebermos. Talvez a descrição mais cortês da missão é que foi um obscuro fracasso resultando na perda da pequena credibilidade que o PNUD tinha.

Em 13 meses passados, nenhum progresso foi registado e nada foi feito para solucionar quaisquer assuntos. A maioria destes assuntos foram apresentados pela primeira vez no dia 19 de setembro de 1998 .

É difícil não chegar à conclusão que PNUD é uma organização obsoleta, arrogante e incompetente que só se interessa com a sua própria dinâmica interna. Carregada de pessoal, em todos os níveis, que se esquecem ou nunca souberam quais são os supostos objectivos que o PNUD deve ter.
Isto está tendo um efeito imensamente destrutivo nas nossas vidas porque não está próxima nenhuma solução.

Se o povo angolano tinha fixado as suas esperanças em qualquer ajuda de PNUD na reconstrução do seu país então esse povo esperará em vão.

Estas são as perguntas que nós queremos que sejam respondidas:

PNUD

O PNUD seguiu os seus próprios procedimentos internos e protecções na preparação do Documento do Projecto com consulta devida aos seus parceiros do Governo angolano?
Qual é a política de PNUD em projectos com condicionantes? Que passos são dados para prevenir estes tipos de projectos a serem implementados pelo PNUD?
Como é que o PNUD assegurou que o contrato que o UNOPS assinou com a RUTEC confirma os objectivos do Documento de Projecto?
O PNUD seguiu os seus próprios procedimentos internos para monitorização e avaliação, revisões de tripartida, relatórios de seguimento oportunos e eficientes e em cooperação com os seus parceiros no Governo angolano? Onde estes relatórios estão?
Tentou o PNUD com UNOPS, RUTEC, o Governo Central e Provincial e outros parceiros, assegurar que o fim da fase de piloto é administrado de um modo significativo, numa forma oportuna e de acordo com os seus próprios procedimentos internos?
Que passos são dados pelo PNUD para assegurar que são implementados projectos que originam do seu escritório e são por eles financiados, que tenham o respeito devido para os direitos fundamentais de seu pessoal e beneficiários de acordo com os estatutos do sistema de Nações Unidas?

UNOPS

Que passos foram dados para assegurar que o contrato que eles assinaram com a RUTEC continha os objectivos específicos e realizáveis como reza o projecto documento e conforme os procedimentos internos postos em lugar para assegurar que estes objectivos serão conhecidos?
Que passos foram dados para assegurar que a metodologia de treinamento de RUTEC é original (e não talvez uma cópia do sistema de OIT) e que o seu equipamento é original (e não talvez dentro do domínio público ou violações de direito autorais) antes de pagar uma taxa de licenciamento de U$D 250 000.00?
Justificação de como o U$D 164 511.00 recebido como AOS tinha sido gasto em administração, enquanto assegurava complacência com os objectivos do projecto, com missão oportuna e eficiente informação e avaliação dos assuntos levantados.
Eles têm certificados de conclusão que justificam o pagamento de U$D 1 505 521.00 em vinte parciais? Nesse caso, qual era a qualificação desta pessoa (s) para assegurar que estavam sendo conhecidos os objectivos do projecto e justificar o pagamento?
Que passos foram dados para assegurar que o fim da fase piloto é administrado de um modo eficiente conforme a realidade e os desejos de PNUD, UNOPS, RUTEC, o Governo Central e Provincial e outros parceiros, numa forma oportuna e em acordo com os seus próprios procedimentos internos?
Que passos foram dados pelo UNOPS para assegurar que são implementados projectos que lhes são exigido implementar com devido respeito para os direitos fundamentais de seu pessoal e beneficiários de acordo com os estatutos do sistema de Nações Unidas?

RUTEC

O que aconteceu com o U$D 1 milhão?
Foram organizados seguro de saúde e de desemprego para o pessoal como foi requerido pelo contrato? Se não, como fazer para que esta omissão seja corrigida.
Que relatório está disponível mostrando que ajuda técnica a RUTEC tenha providenciado ao projecto, ou em geral que benefício recebeu o projecto da RUTEC ? Estes são apoiados por contas claras?
Que passos foram dados para assegurar que o fim da fase piloto é administrado de um modo eficiente conforme a realidade e os desejos de PNUD, UNOPS, RUTEC, o Governo Central e Provincial e outros parceiros, e numa forma oportuna?
Que passos deu a RUTEC para assegurar que são protegidos os Direitos fundamentais do seu pessoal e beneficiários?

Luanda e Huambo, Angola,

15 de setembro de 2001

(Copias originais em Inglês e Português foram assinados pela toda pessoal do projecto e distribuído ao Ministério de Planeamento, Comissão de Direitos Humanos do NU, entre outros. Não a nenhuma resposta ainda.)

A rough and ready translation of an article Published in Angolan weekly “Agora” 23 February 2001 (original in Portuguese follows)

2007-09-19T04:59:00.000-07:00

RUTEC deceives UNDP and the Government

MICROFORM CLOSES ITS DOORS IN HUAMBO

A supposed scam committed by the South African industrial technology company, Rutec, against UNDP caused the closure of the Micro-industry Training Centre in the province of Huambo.

Júlio Gomes

The Micro-industry Training Centre, Microform, which had been functioning in Huambo for the last two years, closed down on 31 January, Wednesday, because of a lack of money that was allocated to it. According to the project director, Leon Kukkuk, making a declaration to “Agora,” that to date he has received no indication from UNDP regarding the future of the project, but truthfully there is no money to continue training that projected in its first phase the instruction of five-hundred people in about twenty-five specialities.
In the first training cycle of eighteen months the abovementioned project planned to benefit close to one thousand two hundred people, the majority of them demobilised soldiers, widows and unemployed in general, and were evaluated at more than one and a half million Dollars. Its continuation may additionally have assisted, indirectly, more than three thousand people.
It is known – as well as hoped – that by way of an audit of the project there are indications that RUTEC, a South African company, to whom UNDP had channelled money from donors for the procurement of equipment and consultancy may be called for justification.
Finally, our source adds, that of money made available by the donors, that is more than one and a half million Dollars paid to RUTEC, Microform only received about half a million Dollars, it is not known what happened to the rest of the money, that is about nine hundred thousand Dollars.
Substantially disturbed by this, and practically without contact with the management of UNDP regarding this issue, Leon Kukkuk, is considering steps outside of the United Nations system to save the project from permanent collapse, but resisted entering into details about the exact procedure.
The relevant community approached by “Agora” showed much concern with this situation, considering that the functioning of the centre assisted in the lives of lots of folks. In the streets of the city there are frequent comments about the disordered closure of the centre that had already offered a variety of products to the local market, most notably fruit juice, peanut butter, honey, wax, bread, guava concentrate, meat and construction material, specifically, barbed wire, compressed earth bricks and leather for shoemaking.
“Quite simply the Micro-industry Training Centre, was contributing to overcoming the misery in the province where the industrial sector had been severely affected.” Claimed Leon Kukkuk.
On the other hand, the management of Governor Paulo Kassoma viewed this a nucleus of development of small industries, for the projection of larger industry. In fact, when the governor visited the project for the first time in March 1999, he already showed his satisfaction, that it is, in his opinion, through projects of this nature that Huambo can already start taking definitive steps on the path to development. Paulo Kassoma must, without a doubt, be another person negatively affected, know that at this moment the centre may already not train anybody.
The deceit committed by RUTEC against UNDP as well as the Angolan authorities that in this manner are unable to advance with its programme against unemployment in the highlands where the industrial sector with more than four thousand employees had come to a halt. In the air remains the promise of an alternative as suggested by the Project director Leon Kukkuk.

Rutec burla PNUD e Governo
MICROFORM FECHA PORTAS NO HUAMBO

Uma suposta burla que a empresa sul – africana de tecnologias industriais, Rutec, terá aplicado ao PNUD provocou o encerramento do centro de formação de micro – industrias na província do Huambo.

Júlio Gomes

O Centro de fomento de micro – empresas, Microform, que estava a funcionar no Huambo durante os últimos dois anos, paralisou a 31 de Janeiro, quarta – feira, devido a falta de dinheiro tal como era previsível. Segundo o director do projecto Leon Kukkuk que prestou estas declarações ao “Agora” , não se receberam ate hoje indicações do PNUD sobre o futuro do projecto mas a verdade e que não ha dinheiro para a continuação da formação que previa na primeira fase a instrução de quinhentas pessoas em cerca de vinte e cinco especialidades’.
Num ciclo de formação de dezoito meses o referido projecto previa beneficiar perto de mil e duzentos pessoas na sua maioria desmobilizados do exercito viuvas e desempregados em geral e estava avaliado em mais de um milhão e quinhentos mil dólares. A sua propagação devia beneficiar também, indirectamente, mais de três mil pessoas.
Soube – se porem que espera – se por uma auditoria ao projecto e ha sinais de que a Rutec, empresa sul – africana, a quem o PNUD havia canalizado o dinheiro dos doadores para aquisição de equipamentos e consultoria poderá vir a ser chamada a razão.
Afinal, acrescenta a nossa fonte, do dinheiro disponibilizado pelos doadores ou seja dos mais de um milhao e quinhentos mil dólares a Rutec forneceu, ao Microform, apenas o equivalente a quinhentos mil dólares não se sabendo ao certo onde estará a outra parte do montante, cerca de novecentos mil dólares.
Bastante inconformado com isso, e praticamente, sem contacto com a direcção do PNUD entendida no assunto, Leon Kukkuk achou porem uma medida para salvar o projecto do colapso definitivo fora do sistema das Nações Unidas mas recusou – se a entrar em detalhes sobre os procedimentos afins.
A própria comunidade segundo apurou o “Agora”, anda preocupada com a situação pois, o funcionamento do centro estava a facilitar a vida a muita gente. Nas ruas da cidade tem sido frequentes comentários sobre a brusca paralisação do centro que já fornecia uma multiplicidade de produtos ao mercado local com predominância para os sumos de fruta, quitaba de ginguba, mel, cera, pão, compota de goiaba, carnes, e materiais de construção, nomeadamente, arames farpados, blocos de terra comprimida, e cabedal para o fabrico de calcado.
“Numa só palavra o Centro de Fomento de Micro – Empresas estava a contribuir para vencer a miséria na província onde o sector industrial ficou severamente atingido’, asseverou Leon Kukkuk.
Por sua vez, o executivo do Governador Paulo Kassoma via nisso um polo de desenvolvimento da pequena industria, para a projecção da grande industria. Alias, quando o governador visitou o projecto pela primeira vez em Marco de 1999, lia – se no seu semblante satisfação já que, em sua opinião, com projectos dessa natureza o Huambo estava a marcar passos seguros na senda do desenvolvimento. Paulo Kassoma deve ser, certamente, outra pessoa atingida com amargura, ao saber que neste momento o centro já não pode formar ninguém.
A burla que a Rutec terá aplicado ao PNUD e também as autoridades angolanas que deste modo ficam privadas de avançar com o seu programa de redução da vaga de desempregados sobretudo no planalto central onde só no sector da industria conta com mais de quatro mil elementos pegou. No ar fica a promessa da alternativa avançada pelo director do projecto Leon Kukkuk.

Original summary of project as sent to UNHCHR in 2002

2007-09-19T04:56:00.001-07:00

I would like to request your assistance for probable legal action in the following project, implemented in Huambo, Angola from June 1998 to January 2001 and for which I was the Project Director:

ANG 96/B01 – BL2101 ‘Community Production Centre in Huambo’ also known locally as ‘Microform’ and at UNDP and UNOPS as ‘The RUTEC Project’ under a variety of different project codes.

I would like to state the following:

1. The project was planned between 1996 and 1998 by the Economics Unit of UNDP Angola.
2. A South African company ‘RUTEC’, a specialist in Micro Enterprises, was selected as a subcontractor. There is no evidence that they had tendered for this contract as is required by UN Regulations or that a waiver for tender was acquired. There is no record of them supplying audited accounts of their financial viability before receiving the contract, also as is required by UN regulations. To date it is unclear how RUTEC became involved.
3. Various Project Documents (ANG96/003, ANG96/005 et.al.) was passed around to various donors for two years without success, probably because the RUTEC component of the project was considered too expensive.
4. RUTEC provided a very vague proposal and never altered it in two years of being requested to be more specific as to what it is that they can do.
5. In the beginning of 1998 UNDP instructed UNOPS (United Nations Office for Project Services) to sign a contract with RUTEC (Contract C-971-794). This was done by Dimitri Samaras, Director for Africa I of UNOPS, on 28 February 1998, apparently against his better judgement. The contract allowed for a 18-month pilot phase after a four-month set-up period. There is no correlation between the contract signed between RUTEC and UNOPS and any of the Project Documents. The contract contains no specific objectives for RUTEC to obtain in order to justify payment, apart from the supply of some equipment. The contract identifies UNDP as owner of the project.
6. In March 1998, Michel Balima, Deputy resident Representative – Projects, UNDP, informed UNOPS that the project will be financed through the Community Reconstruction Programme, a Ministry of Planning programme financed by a Trust Fund managed by UNDP. The Ministry of Planning has consistently claimed that they have not authorised this project, which they considered to be too expensive for what was to be achieved and too reliant on outside input instead of local initiatives.
7. At the end of May 1998, I was contracted as a consultant by RUTEC as Project Director. The only document I had to work from was the UNOPS-RUTEC contract. This left me at a bit of a loss as to what I was supposed to do. I thus made things up as I went along.
8. During 1998 UNDP made two transfers to UNOPS totalling U$D1 645 000.00 for this project.
9. Soon after starting the project it became apparent to me that RUTEC has no capacity to implement a project of this type in Angola. Efforts to discuss this with the UN came to nothing since both UNDP and UNOPS claimed that this was not their project but a project of UNOPS in the case of UNDP and vice versa. (Documentation between myself and RUTEC dating from September 1998 to July 2001 exist where they admit that they are not capable of managing this type of project.)
10. The project started operating at the end of January 1999.
11. In effect it meant that the project was managed by myself, with no support whatsoever, apart from the Provincial Government. In March 1999 the Provincial Governor, Paulo Kassoma, changed the name to ‘Microform’ and said that RUTEC will not be recognised unless they can start contributing towards the project.
12. Using only local resources the project achieved considerable success, at a time of war, and with very little funds. The Provincial Government requested on various occasions that the project should be reformulated after its pilot phase and that additional finance should be sought for continuation. UNDP promised that an evaluation would be done to achieve this. This evaluation never happened.
13. The initial pilot phase came to an end at the end of June 2000. No decision had been made regarding the future of the project and I was left with all the responsibility, lots of contradictory demands and instructions, and no authority to make any decisions. UNDP asked us and the Provincial Government to wait for the evaluation.
14. UNOPS was asked by the Angolan Government to leave the country and did so by the end of January 2000. This was partly as a consequence of the consistent failure of their projects in Angola.
15. UNOPS had paid RUTEC a total amount of U$D 1 505 000.00, up to the end of September 2000 for the supply of equipment, management costs and project escalation costs, in 19 instalments. Of this RUTEC had supplied equipment, according to a grossly inflated invoice of U$D 285 000.00 (three second hand computers @ U$D 8 000.00, a box of nuts and bolts @ U$D 1 900.00 and a football @ U$D 7 000.00, to name but a few discrepancies) and all running expenses, set up, construction, salaries, international travel, etc at U$D 227 000.00 paid in 18 instalments between June 1998 and June 2000. RUTEC had received U$D 250 000.00 as a licensing fee in spite of the fact that they had only supplied equipment that is within the public domain and their manuals are copies of the ILO manuals.
16. The expenditure of more than U$D 1 million cannot be justified in terms of benefits to the project.
17. The first two payments from UNOPS to RUTEC totalling about U$D 500 000.00 were authorised by the UNOPS Country Representative, Lawrence Dozcy. The remaining 17 payments were authorised by the UNDP Resident Representative, first Bernard Ntegye and then Zoraida Mesa. Two planned payments totalling U$D 87 261.00 were cancelled by UNOPS. All the project monthly reports (reports written by the staff in Huambo), various letters and numerous meetings informed UNDP that project funds are not reaching the project and requested that these payments be suspended until RUTEC can justify their contribution to the project. This had no effect. RUTEC never wrote any reports to UNOPS.
18. During the project UNOPS had made one one-day mission on 31 March 1999, UNDP two one-day missions on 31 March 1999 and 31 March 2000 and RUTEC one one-day mission on 31 March 2000. The management problems of the project were discussed extensively during these visits but these entities never produced any mission reports or any meaningful follow up. UNDP claimed that these issues will be resolved during an evaluation promised first for May 2000 then June 2000. RUTEC refused to discuss any of the issues raised unless an extension of their contract can be confirmed. They were unable to supply any information on what they can offer to the project.
19. After July 2000 RUTEC claimed that they can no longer provide any funds to the project unless an extension to their contract can be arranged. Even though they had received a payment from UNOPS of U$D 57 126.00 up to the end of September 2000, I was obliged to pay U$D 6 800.00 from my own funds to cover staff salaries up to the end of July 2000. Additional project expenses of approximately U$D 10 000.00 were left unpaid due to lack of funds and are unpaid up to date. These debts are putting me under huge pressure as nobody is taking responsibility to pay it.
20. My own salary was in arrears by about 13 months but I was unable to get confirmation from RUTEC as to what has been paid and what not.
21. UNDP asked us to continue working pending an evaluation and mobilisation of additional funds.
22. In September 2000 I spent three weeks at UNDP Luanda preparing documentation for an evaluation. To date UNDP has not followed up on these documents. Michel Balima had left UNDP Angola at this stage and for the first time both myself and UNDP staff in general had access to the project files. This was the first time I had access to a Project Document.
23. On 10 October 2000 I received, through both UNDP and RUTEC, a copy of a letter by UNOPS, dated 01 October 2000, ordering the project to close down immediately. The letter referred me to UNDP, as owner of the project, for guidance as to the practical and logistical aspects of such a closure in accordance to UN procedures as laid down in the Local Property Survey Board document. On 11 October 2000 I wrote a letter to UNDP seeking this guidance, mentioning that according to the Provincial Government, projects of this type can only be closed down on authorisation by the Minister of Planning, after a tripartite evaluation to be initiated by UNDP. To date no response has been received to this letter.
24. On 22/23 October 2000 the UNDP Country Office evaluation team visited the project. Upon their return they apparently discussed the issues raised with the UNDP Resident Representative, Zoraida Mesa, who on 27 December 2000 wrote to James Curry, the Director of the UNDP Office of Audit and Performance Appraisal, New York, requesting an audit.
25. On 04 November 2000, Stanslaus Nkwain, the new Deputy Resident Representative – Projects, visited Huambo. Upon leaving at the end of that day he promised me a response to the issues raised within two weeks. No response had been received to date.
26. Throughout November 2000 to January 2001 I kept in touch with UNDP almost daily both by telephone and in writing, regarding clarity about the project without ever receiving any responses.
27. On 22 January 2001 I informed UNDP that if no response had been received by 31 January 2001 the project will be closed down.
28. On 31 January 2001 I unilaterally closed the project down against almost universal condemnation and a lot of ill feeling. Staff and myself had worked seven months without contracts or salaries based on vague but unfulfilled promises by UNDP that they will reformulate and refinance the project. Sale of some of the equipment paid a small amount of the salary arrears. The rest of the equipment was placed in storage.
29. As a consequence of closing down the project I was detained in my own house for two days by the provincial authorities before being asked to go to Luanda to sort out the project difficulties. I was given one week to do this.
30. On 11 February 2001 I spoke to Herbert Behrstock, the Officer in Charge of UNDP, Angola, who assured me that UNDP will assume responsibility for the project problems and solve them and that they will plan and implement a new project in Huambo.
31. From 01 March 2001 to 30 June 2001 I was contracted by UNDP (SSA 2001/036) with the following terms of reference: to prepare an evaluation of the project to justify an audit, to prepare a project document for a follow up project and to prepare an inventory of equipment currently available in Huambo.
32. Correspondence between UNOPS and UNDP shows that UNOPS has no idea about the project and that their explanations are of the nature of excuses.
33. At the end of April 2001 and at the end of June 2001 I received two payments from RUTEC to the amount of U$D 25 000.00 covering my salary arrears for part of the year 2000. To date I have not been able to get paid the outstanding amount on my salary.
34. A Logframe for a Project Document was distributed to all UNDP staff on 25 April 2001. To date nobody has provided any feedback. Documents were prepared for the auditor, Bereket Sletzion, who in June 2001 informed the audit office that he believes an audit to be necessary. No financial information could be obtained from RUTEC to justify the money that they had received in spite of numerous letters to them to provide this. Local staff in Huambo refused me access to any of the equipment until their salaries have been paid.
35. By 27 June 2001 I gave UNDP a draft Project Document, which was compiled by myself, at my own expense, in extensive collaboration with the Provincial Authorities and local NGO’s. They promised that we will meet within a few days to discuss this document. To date we have not yet met.
36. Throughout July and August 2001 I kept in touch daily with UNDP regarding the project. At the end of July 2001 it was decided to have a mission to Huambo. Although I requested on several occasions to have the Terms of Reference for this mission, this was never received, leaving us all in the dark as to what this mission was to achieve.
37. The UNDP Mission took place on 22/24 August 2001 headed by Teresa Felix, National Programme Officer. None of the salary arrears were paid but staff were promised that they can work on a new project and receive these arrears in small amounts over several months. When asked about the project document and when a new project will be implemented, she showed complete ignorance. The government were ordered to put all equipment in storage, in spite of their claims that they do not have any available and would like some project activities to continue. I was ordered (by UNDP) to sign documents in the name of RUTEC for which I had no mandate (and never had) to take responsibility, causing huge resentment when I refused to do so. In general her attitude was considered arrogant, aggressive and grossly incompetent. UNDP lost whatever little credibility they may ever had had during this visit. (Documents available)
38. Immediately after this mission, and apparently acting upon instructions from the Provincial Governor, the Directorate of Criminal Investigation took up the issue and called in all the staff, including myself, to make statements. The National state run newspaper published an article quoting a Ministry of Planning official saying that the central government will pursue this issue in search of an explanation.
39. In the beginning of September 2001 the local staff wrote a letter to UNDP stating that they are unhappy with the solutions offered by UNDP during the mission, principally since this would oblige them to work for UNDP. This they considered to be unacceptable. As a consequence of this letter UNDP started searching for practical mechanisms to pay the salary arrears.
40. At the same time I informed UNDP that I consider them to be incompetent and incapable of planning a project of any sort and that alternatives for a new project will be sought.
41. I discussed the project problems in detail with Stephen Kinloch, Assistant Resident Representative who promised to take this issue up with the new Resident Representative, Erick de Mul and wrote several letters to me promising that UNDP will seek a solution.
42. In September 2001 the possibilities for a new project, outside of UNDP, was discussed with the Provincial Government. It was agreed that, whilst they would consider alternatives, that I should remain in Luanda seeking donor support and NGO’s that may support it. By the beginning of November 2001 I was asked to return to Huambo to help prepare a project document for a project to be implemented through the Public Investment Programme, a government initiative. These documents were prepared and presented to the Minister of Planning by mid- December 2001. The project was authorised by the beginning of January 2002 and implemented at the end of the same month with a budget of U$D 850 000.00 for the first year. This was done entirely at my own initiative and expense with no input by UNDP whatsoever.
43. On 26 November 2001 I was informed by Stephen Kinloch that UNDP has agreed to pay the outstanding local staff salaries and that payment of my own salary and other expenses will be decided through an audit. He was unable to provide any dates, simply a note stating: ‘For reasons beyond my control I am no longer able to be in contact with you on behalf of UNDP. Consider this communication informal and unofficial.’
44. On 15 January 2002 I appeared in a radio interview where I explained some of the above details as well as the fact that for over a million Dollars that was spent by UNDP no results can be shown. Francisco de Almeida, on behalf of UNDP, responded the following day on radio. He claimed that misappropriation of a million dollars is news to UNDP and that I as Project Director would be responsible to provide an explanation, that UNDP, as an act of goodwill will pay all salary arrears, that an audit will be held during the first quarter of 2002 and that a new project will be implemented based on the Project Document prepared by myself.
45. On 28 January 2002 he appeared in Huambo to pay U$D 33 000.00 in salary arrears. During this visit he reiterated the claims made on radio and brought with him a letter signed by Erick de Mul stating that UNDP only planned and financed the project and as such are in no way responsible for the problems experienced by the project. These should be taken up with UNOPS and RUTEC. I have very serious problems with this sort of argument and will pursue an explanation from the UN system as to how it is possible for senior managers to make these sort of excuses. This line of argument has been tried by various dubious entities in history and has never been accepted by any legal body. That the UN, that is supposed to work to the highest moral standards, are making these sort of excuses, are cause for very serious concern to me.
46. Francisco de Almeida distributed a file containing documents in support of UNDP’s argument. For the argument that I am responsible to explain the whereabouts of the project funds, a copy of my CV is provided. For the argument that the government has in fact authorised the project, an unsigned document, generated by UNDP, asking a series of questions is provided. To me, and to the recipients of this file (I did not receive any copy of it), its content was considered tantamount to excuses of an extremely low professional level.
47. To date there has been no audit, nor any prospect of an audit.
48. In March 2002 ‘Mãos Livres’ (Free Hands) an Angolan Human Rights organisation, took up the issue and wrote to the Criminal Investigation Section of the police about it. On 30 April 2002 the state prosecutor replied that the issue has been handed over to his office and that all future correspondence need to be directed to him. Since then they have not been able to provide any concrete information. The legal system in Angola is very ponderous to say the least.
49. In the beginning of July 2002 the lawyers from Mãos Livres spoke to Francisco de Almeida at UNDP who promised to provide them with all the relevant documentation for an argument that UNDP is innocent of any wrongdoing. When they had not received the documentation after two weeks of trying they assumed that these would not be forthcoming. Francisco de Almeida also claimed that an audit will be held in the last quarter of 2002.
50. Since the beginning of July 2002 the lawyers from Mãos Livres also had been trying to meet with Erick de Mul, the UNDP Representative. These meetings have been consistently postponed or alternatively they have been left waiting all day at UNDP without being attended to. Meetings arranged with Erick de Mul between August 2002 and October 2002 was not in a single instance honoured.
51. On 23 July 2002 I was asked to attend a meeting with an investigative team that are investigating various UNDP projects, including this one. This mission, with one International Consultant and three Angolans was apparently requested by the Ministry of Planning and jointly financed by UNDP and the government. Although they asked very penetrating and critical questions their priorities seem to lie more with the general nature of UNDP assistance than with my particular difficulties.
52. I have an excellent relationship with the Angolan government. Several government officials have warned me to be careful and not to let anybody at UNDP know where I live. I am not sure how serious I should take this advice.
53. In October 2002 Francisco de Almeida claimed that an audit will be held early in 2003.
54. A national weekly paper AGORA published two articles (28 September 2002 and 06 December 2002) raising the issue of the unexplained funds and asking UNDP for an explanation, considering the fact that UNDP had consistently refused to speak to any of their journalists. Francisco de Almeida, apparently highly indignant, gave them a series of documents protesting UNDP’s innocence. The journalists considered these documents irrelevant as a response to their questions. Once again UNDP claimed that I am the person responsible to provide answers and once again my CV is offered as proof.
55. In October 2002 and November 2002 I was asked to the National Directorate for Criminal Investigation on three occasions to provide information on a criminal investigation regarding this project.
56. In the beginning of December 2002 I was contacted by a senior official of the Ministry of Justice, Dr Sitende, and met with him on 07 January 2003. He explained to me that he would like to pursue avenues to oblige Erick de Mul to speak to me and resolve this issue in a friendly manner. Should Erick de Mul not respond to this approach, the issue (regarding their treatment of me) will then be solved through the courts.
For over three years my life has been dominated by trying to find solutions to caused by gross negligence and incompetence of others, principally UNDP. Whenever they do communicate with me it is invariably to demand that I spend my time and at my own expense generate documents or follow certain procedures that would allow them to make certain decisions, which they then never do. I have worked with more than eight UNDP staff members, all of whom initially make promises of a solution and then do nothing. I have been lied to, threatened and insulted by UNDP staff (some of this I have in writing). I have been without an income for more than two years and have changed from being financially independent to currently being unable to feed my family. I have no legal documents to be in Angola but cannot leave because I have no money.
In spite of their denials I hold UNDP accountable for the difficulties I am experiencing. This is a direct result of poor planning and financial control on their part initially, followed by making promises that they were unable to fulfil. I have lost confidence that UNDP has either the will or capacity to solve these issues on their own account. If they cannot even organise an audit in a reasonable time it is unlikely that they will have the capacity to conduct an audit.

I believe that the only option open to me is legal action, for which I am seeking guidance on how to proceed. I am also sending regular letters to the press hoping to turn this into the scandal that it should be.

This is the shortest summary am able to produce, for what is essentially a very complex issue. Everything stated above are supported by documentation and declarations by people involved. These documents are available to anybody interested.

Some UNDP evaluations and observations that were previously posted as comments

2007-09-19T04:24:00.001-07:00

In possible support of the argument above and disturbingly similar to my own experience with UNDP and UNOPS in Angola is an evaluation of the UNDP/UNOPS Peacebuilding and Community Development Project in Ituri, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) by Ingrid Samset and Yvon Madore from the Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI), an independent, non-profit research institution.This is an evaluation of the project “Support To Peacebuilding And Community Development In Ituri,” implemented in the Ituri district of the Democratic Republic of Congo from mid-2003 onwards, by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in conjunction with the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS). The project, which ended in 2006, was co-financed by the Government of Norway (U$D 3.1 million) and UNDP (U$D 400 000.00).At the end of the report they provide the following summary:“Building peace through community development: this was the key idea of the evaluated project, which was run in the war-torn Ituri district of the DRC from 2003 onwards. The planning of the project did not take sufficiently into account the difficult conditions under which it would be run. Centralisation of project management tasks to UNDP and UNOPS in Kinshasa, and the shortage of resources that were made available for the project at this central level, complicated implementation efforts on the ground. Strategic management was also weak. Still, many positive results materialised as the local partner organisations welcomed the idea of building peace through community development and acted on it in their micro projects. Thanks to many skilful local partners and a dedicated UN project team in Ituri, and despite considerable delays, the micro projects came a long way towards reaching the aims of reconciliation, reconstruction, local capacity building, and HIV/AIDS awareness raising. As a whole the project contributed to launching the processes of peacebuilding and community development in the district. But given the uniqueness of the project and its weak coordination with other agencies, little ground was prepared for a scale-up and a transfer of results in a subsequent phase.The peacebuilding and community development project was hence a success – but a success that materialised in spite of an unsuitable organisational framework, weak strategic management, insufficient coordination, and continued violence in Ituri. It was in other words a “success by default”; one that came about despite choices made within the project that were not the most amenable to goal attainment. Yet given the project’s positive results, its still unrealised potential, the need for such a project in Ituri, and the learning of lessons within UNDP; the report recommends that the project continue and proposes a number of reforms that should be made within it in a new phase.”It may be interesting to note that this project was implemented in the immediate aftermath of this confident promise made by the then UNDP Administrator, Mark Malloch Brown in 2003:“Today, UNDP has come to the close of the most dramatic four-year internal transformation in our history. We are more capable than ever before of responding to the world’s development challenges because our organization is stronger, more focused and better connected. We seek and achieve results, and underscore accountability in all that we do. We look for new and creative opportunities to help people build better lives, through partnerships and the exchange of knowledge, while ensuring that our resources flow steadily behind our mission to reduce poverty.”In order to truly understand what this project evaluation summary above really says, it may be important to reflect on the euphemistic way in which many of these reports are written. A statement such as “can be improved” usually means “was a complete failure” and - the personal favourite of many consultants doing evaluations - “at best had no results” almost invariably means that said activity harmed the very people it was supposed to benefit.This particular report is not all that guilty of these sorts of euphemisms, written as it is by a respected and independent organisation. Nevertheless, as is the nature of these reports, its criticism remains in many ways very general, much understated and with an emphasis on avoiding possible conflict and offence.In this context one should then perhaps be concerned about statements such as “the shortage of resources that were made available for the project at this central level.” That usually means that nobody knows where much of the funds were spent.If the resources were not made available to the project, where and/or to whom were they then made available?The usual criticisms that surface so regularly with regard to UNDP -“unsuitable organisational framework, weak strategic management, insufficient coordination, and continued violence,” “considerable delays,” “choices . . . that were not the most amenable to goal attainment” – sits uneasily with Mark Malloch Brown’s confident promise of an organization “that is stronger, more focused and better connected,” that “seeks and achieves results, and that underscores accountability in all that we do.” An organization that “looks for new and creative opportunities to help people build better lives, through partnerships and the exchange of knowledge,” and (by the way) “ensuring that our resources flow steadily behind our mission to reduce poverty.”It shows an institution that, notwithstanding the report’s assertion of “the learning of lessons within UNDP,” remains an organisation that is unable to learn lessons, in fact, an organisation almost exactly the same as the one of which I have experience in Angola (in the midst of its so-called “most dramatic four-year internal transformation in our history”) when it was evaluated as such:“UNDP is one of the weakest structures in terms of administering programmes. After almost 4 years, none of the rehabilitation had taken place. Proposals received in late 1995 from communities had still not been processed 4 years later. Due to poor implementation, the international community was further discredited. If implemented early and effectively, this programme could have assisted in the consolidation of peace.UNDP’s own bureaucratic systems of financial planning, reporting and monitoring - Imprecise and overlapping sets of definitions of programme and project boundaries made budgeting a difficult process for non UN personnel to understand. Government, Donors and Communities each became frustrated and impatient with programme procedures and tended to look for means to circumvent them.”It shows an organisation refusing to answer the questions of their failure in one country as they already embark on exactly the same failures in another.Refreshingly for a UNDP project it appears that in spite of the difficulties, “projects came a long way towards reaching” their goals, “thanks to many skilful local partners and a dedicated UN project team in Ituri.”One is assuming here that the UN project team in Ituri must have consisted largely or exclusively of Congolese, thus leaving the burden for the project failures with UNDP in Kinshasa. As is usual with these sorts of reports it is very difficult to asses whom exactly had not done their jobs, and what exactly it is that they should have done but did not, and, equally importantly, what exactly they did do with their time at UNDP in the DRC.From previous experience I would be somewhat concerned with the relationship between what UNDP staff did with their spare time and “the shortage of resources that were made available for the project at this central level.” In Angola it appears as though key staff dedicated their time to making funds available to their cronies. They then dedicated their time trying to cover up this fact.One can however, with a bit of effort, come up with some names, names that are useful in some ways, but useless in the absence of accountability systems that would actually hold them accountable, that can explain exactly what they did not do and what they did do. Therefore I can only speculate, but here all same is the, admittedly incomplete and unsupported, result of my speculations:Roberto Valent, Deputy Resident Representative, and UNDP Programme Co-ordinator, Babacar Cissé, Country Director, UNDP, Daniel Mukoko, Senior Economist, Policy and Strategy Unit, UNDP,Zenaide Gatelli, Reintegration Expert, the COMREC project, UNDP,Judith Suminwa, Programme Advisor, Post-conflict unit, UNDP, Robert Geilimo, Community Development Expert, Ituri Peacebuilding and Development project, UNDP, Clive Jachnik, Principal Technical Advisor, the MRR project, UNDP.And as I speculated I also came across German Hulgich, Co-ordinator, Central Management and Coordination Unit, UNOPS. What made this discovery so interesting is not the name of the person as much as his title. In 2001, as I wandered around at UNDP in Luanda, trying - unsuccessfully to date - to solicit an explanation as to what had happened to the funds that UNDP was supposed to disburse to a project in Huambo, Angola but did not; I came across this correspondence from Dimitri Samaras, Deputy Director UNOPS, and instrumental in the misplacement of said funds, to Herbert Behrstock, Officer-in-Charge UNDP, Angola on 12 March 2001:“. . .Lots of money have been spent in Angola and wasted for no reason. . . or reasons beyond my imagination.We have invested but never capitalised on it. Cost benefit analysis is indeed needed.I do believe that this office needs a Central Management and Coordination Unit which will implement/ execute and supervise all operational activities.” Dimitri Samaras is not in my experience a person with much of an imagination, but it is astounding how the same solution he offers for their failure in Angola then becomes complicit in their failure in the DRC. Surely the solution to their problems must be found somewhere other than in the ability to move blocks around on an organisational chart?An excellent example of this is how in Angola UNDP in the mid-nineties created an “Economics Unit,” which they announced with a lot of fanfare will contribute towards the consolidation of peace and reconstruction in Angola. When this failed to materialise they created the “Project Management Support Unit.” This consisted of two lost looking individuals, a man and a woman, who with increasing and ultimately futile despair tried to figure out what UNDP had done and was doing with its funds. It did not go to its projects. As criticism of UNDP mounted they responded with the “Advocacy, Partnership and Resource Mobilization Unit,” this time consisting of one pathological liar with an uncanny ability to exclaim, “this is getting more and more complicated” when asked routine questions. This finally morphed into a more conveniently named “External Relations Unit” consisting of the same man being equally confused.The shocking reality that lies behind the measured tones of this report, and is not even alluded to or acknowledged, is the sacrifices and effort that no doubt had to be made by somebody to make the project a success. It is not “success by default” as the report asserts, it is success because without a doubt, somebody, most likely the local staff members, made an exceptional effort to do what UNDP was supposed to do.Projects of this type that do have some results, invariably achieve them not so much in spite of the failures of UNDP and UNOPS, but because an effort is made to mitigate the harm that these organisations cause.In his excellent book “The White Man's Burden: Why the West's Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good” Prof. William Easterly claims that existing aid strategies provide neither accountability nor feedback. Without accountability for failures, he says, broken systems are never fixed. And without feedback from the poor who need the assistance, no one in charge really understands exactly what trouble spots need fixing. Prof. Easterly adamantly argues that the sort of planning administered by organizations such as the UN will never reach the people that need it most.True victories against poverty, he demonstrates, does not come from those who seek to impose solutions from the top down, but are achieved through indigenous, ground-level effort that adapts to the real life and culture of countries from the bottom up.It may be a bit utopian to think that all these small efforts will add up to the big changes required in the absence of fundamental reforms and the efforts of local actors can be a bit of a racket as well, but to suggest that the project can be continued with UNDP, since it has “learned lessons” is equally naïve since UNDP has demonstrated and demonstrates with each additional failure that it is not able to learn anything.
10 April 2007 23:43:00 PDT
Leon Kukkuk said...
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) recently published on their website a summary of their 2006 Final Expenditures from their “Programme Management Support Unit” (PmSU).Using a readable format, it provides a reasonably clear and understandable overview of where they claim to have spent their money.This is in stark contrast to the hugely complicated gobbledygook that could in the past only be extracted from them with great difficulty. These were documents that required advanced knowledge of both medieval poetry and Chinese algebra in order to decipher.This complexity was no doubt necessary in order to hide the fact that expenditures fluctuated rather erratically and that entire projects appeared and disappeared from the accounts seemingly at random. Nevertheless these documents consistently supported whatever argument UNDP tried to promote at the time, even if these arguments were often wildly contradictory.However, once one gets to the recommendations section of their 2006 Final Expenditures summary one once again enter familiar UNDP territory with the same litany of failures and shortcomings. Once again the same phrases encountered in all reports about UNDP over a period of many years and across all the countries where they operate crop up: implementation rate has worsened, a low implementation rate, management activities registered the lowest implementation rate, Weak capacity to monitor projects in order to achieve the results expected, should create conditions to reinforce the capacity for the projects management in order to increase the implementation rate, Capacity building project staff is highly recommended (to) facilitate the understanding of UNDP rules and procedures in project management, Programme Officers should be more involved in monitoring project activities in order to ensure that the activities take place, the implementation rate could be better if the capacity in the formulation and implementation of projects was further improved.Here is the complete list:CONCLUSIONS:1. Related to the global expenditures, the Country Office implementation rate has worsened as compared with the previous year, representing a decrease of 11%2. Programme expenditures including the Global Fund decreased 9% from 2005 to 20063. A low implementation rate was observed in the Global Fund portfolio, specifically in the Tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS component, which represents 79% of the total GF budget. A decrease of 14% from 2005 was observed in 20064. The IV quarter tends to be the period with the highest level of expenditures (46% in 2005, 32% in 2006), which reveals a tendency to accelerate the spending in the last quarter, in an attempt to meet set targets.5. The Management activities registered the lowest (50%) implementation rate6. The CO capacity to mobilize resources decreased in 52%7. The Global Fund 2006 budget was over estimated with a downward direct impact on the overall CO implementation rate8. Weak CO capacity to monitor projects in order to achieve the results expected.RECOMMENDATIONS:1. The CO should create conditions to reinforce the capacity for the projects management in order to increase the implementation rate2. Capacity building of NEX project staff is highly recommended. This can facilitate the understanding of UNDP rules and procedures in project management.3. UNDP staff dealing with several projects need to work closely with PMSU in order to get good results in project management4. Programme Officers should be more involved in monitoring project activities in order to ensure that the activities take place in the due date with the adequate budget resources5. The implementation rate could be better if the capacity in the formulation and implementation of projects was further improved.These largely negative observations remain persistent within UNDP in spite of the confident promise made by the then UNDP Administrator, Mark Malloch Brown in 2003:“Today, UNDP has come to the close of the most dramatic four-year internal transformation in our history. We are more capable than ever before of responding to the world’s development challenges because our organization is stronger, more focused and better connected. We seek and achieve results, and underscore accountability in all that we do. We look for new and creative opportunities to help people build better lives, through partnerships and the exchange of knowledge, while ensuring that our resources flow steadily behind our mission to reduce poverty.”It is hardly surprising that negative observations should continue after this “most dramatic four-year internal transformation in our history” since the same people responsible for the shambles at UNDP before it are still there. That is, apart from those that were promoted to somewhere else.It is true that UNDP did get rid of many of its staff at the time, but I have always maintained that they got rid of everybody that is incompetent since at UNDP staff are required to be both incompetent and corrupt. Even so, at UNDP in Angola at least, it appears that many of the staff that were dismissed in 2003 had since managed to sneak back into the organisation, often into higher positions than those for which they were originally judged inadequate. It may be that they were allowed to return by promising that they would henceforth comply with the second of the two requirements for employment at UNDP.Positive as the publication of UNDP’s recent expenditures may be, it still falls far short of a complete and honest assessment and disclosure of what they are doing. It is still too much part of a process of trumpets and fanfare and far, far too little of substance.The fact that UNDP apparently nowadays more or less know where they are getting money from and to whom they give to spend, still give no real indication of really how much money is actually getting to those for whom it is intended and how these people then benefit from it. A quick look at the Programme Mid-Term Review (13-31 March 2006) for the “Chevron-UNDP Angola Enterprise Programme” may give some indication that all is not as well as UNDP always try and make it out to be:“The appreciative aspect means that the focus is not on what doesn't work, but on what works and why. Many times, the key to solutions can be found in the 20% of a project that is successful, rather than the remaining 80% which is not. The mid-term evaluation came-up with strong and overhauling recommendations: - a new programme structure, departing from the show-case model to a service delivery model; - a more focused approach with clear deliverables and clear definitions of roles and objectives; - a very specific work-plan for the future.”

Westminster Wisdom: Mark Malloch Brown

2007-07-06T00:32:00.000-07:00

Westminster Wisdom: Mark Malloch Brown

Heads I win, Tails You Loose Part 1

2007-07-03T23:28:00.000-07:00

This post has been moved to http://leonkukkuk.blogspot.com/

The comments remain here for the time being

Make Things As Simple As Possible, And No Simpler.

2007-06-22T04:07:00.000-07:00

This post has been molved to http://leonkukkuk.blogspot.com/

". . . a land of facilities, where nothing had to be striven for, and success was indistinguishable from failure." (E.M. Forster "Maurice")

2007-06-13T06:05:00.000-07:00

This post has been moved to http://leonkukkuk.blogspot.com/

One Small Voice

2007-05-08T04:09:00.000-07:00

This post has been moved to http://leonkukkuk.blogspot.com/

White Lies; Black Truths

2007-04-19T02:20:00.000-07:00

I am including here a chapter, written in 2002, from my book. Added are comments from what had been done subsequently, showing how progress in UN Reform remains mired in the same platitudes:

Many champions of the United Nations viewed the end of the Cold War as the dawn of a new era in international affairs in which the UN would play a leading role. A standing army at the call of the UN Security Council would impose peace on warring nations and a plethora of dedicated agencies would engage in “nation building” in so-called failed states. A host of UN-brokered international agreements on issues ranging form the environment to health to urban planning, funded by multilateral development banks, would serve as the basis for a “Great Global Society.”
UN Wire even optimistically reported on 30 June 1999 that the “renowned economist John Kenneth Galbraith is calling on the United Nations to intervene when corrupt government results in hardship, poverty and suffering.”
“In a humane world order, we must have a mechanism to suspend sovereignty when this is necessary to protect against human suffering and disaster. Let there be government by the UN to bring about an effective and humane independence.”
Galbraith said that while economic aid is important, “without honest, competent government, it is of little consequence.”
Saying colonialism has often given way to corrupt government or no government at all, Galbraith noted: “Nothing so ensures hardship, poverty and suffering as the absence of a responsible, effective, honest polity.” He identified the very large number of the destitute as “the most evident and painful of the economic and social legacies from the centuries past.”

The United Nations has achieved some positive results, but has always fallen short of achieving the objectives for which it was created. It helped facilitate the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan but not much else, it orchestrated the transition to democracy in Namibia but caused huge inflation in the process, it helped effect reconciliation between warring factions in El Salvador and has assisted the independence of East Timor with a reasonable degree of success. Also, it is a good idea to have a place where governments can gather to air grievances. But it has made no long-lasting and permanent improvements in the lives of anybody but its own overpaid and over-privileged staff.
It is easy to imagine the United Nations as the fat, dominant kid that runs after each and every problem shouting; “Let me solve it” and then invariably making a mess of it.
It is almost impossible to talk about the United Nations without generalising, from a few selected and specific examples, thus when talking about its failure, ignoring its few successes; when waxing lyrical on its successes forgetting its glaring failures; talking about its strengths, forgetting about the pervasiveness of its weaknesses. Overall, the United Nations should be considered as a fantastic idea, an organisation that is an essential and valuable part of the modern world, gone sadly wrong. Millions of words had been written about the failure of the United Nations, varying from right leaning American think tanks that believe that it is an embryonic superstate that could potentially menace liberty; to left leaning groups that believe that it is nothing more than a rubber stamp for American foreign policy. It is generally referred to as a vast bureaucracy that resists all efforts at reform. This resistance to reform and to any sort of internal and external control mechanisms is one of the most remarkable, indeed the signature, feature of the United Nations System today. The many attempts at UN reform across the years have suffered from failures: failure to implement measures; negotiated compromises that are inadequate and subsequently difficult to undo; moving boxes on organizational charts without attention to ensuring vital lines of communication and coordination; poor choices of senior UN personnel; lack of clear job descriptions; inadequate or non-existent staff training; assigning tasks and funding to institutions on grounds of favouritism rather than appropriateness; and confusion over the meaning of the term “coordination.”
Although all sorts of noble motivations for this are usually given, ignoring the fact that no matter how noble the purposes of the UN, it can at best only employ human beings.
The United Nations had gone sadly wrong because its people had failed it. In reality it is becoming increasingly obvious that many UN agencies act as a magnet for every type of charlatan and crook, where incompetence seems to be not only tolerated but also actively encouraged and rewarded. In spite of their unspeakable incompetence, or perhaps because of it, the single, defining characteristic attribute of most UN staff is their arrogance. Much of this arrogance is born from the notion that they belong to something special, something that is inherently special and which specialness applies to them although in reality they may be nothing more than a bunch of freeloading charlatans exploiting the system.
Graham Hancock, in his book “The Lords of Poverty” puts it most succinctly; “To continue with the charade seems to me to be absurd. Garnered and justified in the name of the destitute and the vulnerable, aid’s main function in the past half-century has been to create and then entrench a powerful new class of rich and privileged people. In that notorious club of parasites and hangers-on made up of the United Nations, the World Bank, and the bilateral agencies, it is aid - and nothing else - that has provided hundreds of thousands of ‘jobs for the boys’ and that has permitted record-breaking standards to be set in self-serving behaviour, arrogance, paternalism, moral cowardice, and mendacity.”
It is forgotten that the UN has no intrinsic value; there is no space for it under international law. It is not inherently special. It was created purely on the basis of a moral argument and its only legitimacy could ever come from the quality of its work. And much of the quality of its work, the sort of work that can provide legitimacy and credibility to the notion of a United Nations, should be done by the UN agencies, at that point where it interacts with ordinary people. The people whose quality of work was supposed to make it special, but who had done nothing but degrade it, seldom do more than demand the consideration and respect they sincerely believe is their due simply because they represent the UN system.
There is no other agency where this is more obvious than at the principle agency of the system; UNDP. And since this agency has taken it upon themselves to tell others how to behave, the dichotomy between what they say they are and what they really are in reality had become increasingly conspicuous and disturbing.
It may be useful to define some of the concepts that had entered into our discussion thus far such as corruption, transparency, accountability and competence in order to get an idea of just how far UNDP had strayed. UNDP now devotes about one-third of its funding to governance issues and therefore we will try to use their own definitions as far as is possible. Since their work is aimed mostly at governments, most of the definitions they use are aimed at governments, but the central tenants hold true for the UN as well.
Remarkably, no concise definition of corruption can be found within the UNDP literature that could meaningfully be applied to governments, multi- and bi-lateral agencies, NGO’s and civil society organisations. In the case of these sorts of organisations corruption is of two kinds - the simple pocketing of public or private money, on the one hand - but also the misrepresentation of themselves as independent, public service and beneficial when they are not, on the other. The legitimacy of these organisations exist only because of what they say they are going to do - if they do this fraudulently, or covertly do something different, this is a their particular kind of corruption. Because of the high moral principles of this sector, however, any corruption is an important problem. What we need is a more sceptical, objective view of the sector without both romanticism ion the one hand, or cynicism on the other - a clear appreciation of its strengths and weaknesses, and a pragmatic view of what can be done to help them regain the moral high ground from which they have, in the case of UNDP, so obviously started to slip.
Richard Holloway, the one time Bishop of Edinburgh and Graham Professor of Divinity in the City of London suggests a definition of corruption for NGO’s and other forms of civil society organisations: “behaviour for personal gain, or for the benefit of another person or organisation on the part of people who claim to represent an independent, not for profit, public benefit organisation.”
Yet Michael Maren, a journalist and former aid official who worked in Africa for 20 years, writes, “Aid bureaucrats, have one purpose in life: spending other people’s money. They don’t pay much attention to how successful or devastating their development projects might be. Their concern, or lack of concern, for most Third World people is determined solely by the bottom line on the foreign aid budget.”
In the very awkwardly titled occasional paper from the UNDP Human Development Report Office, “Poverty Eradication And Democracy In The Developing World, Human Development Report 2002, Regional Overview Of The Impact Of Failures Of Accountability On Poor People,” Ahmed Mohiddin suggests the following definitions for Accountability and Transparency:
Accountability
Accountability is the obligation to render an account for a conferred responsibility. The linkage between assigned tasks and the actual performance makes a reality of one’s responsibilities or obligations to those who have entrusted them with those responsibilities. It is in a sense a reciprocal relationship between those who have been entrusted with certain responsibilities and those who expect those responsibilities to be fulfilled. Accountability requires that public officials respond to the requests and demands of the citizens without any discrimination or favours.
Financial accountability is an indispensable management device providing essential information for the effective monitoring and controlling of resources. One important function of accountability in the private sector is the provision of sufficient and necessary information on the performance of the enterprises so that investors may make or adjust their decisions. Or those who are concerned with the economy and promotion of human development - the government - may put in place the appropriate poverty eradication policies.
Society is an intricate network of reciprocal and accountable relationships between peoples at various levels and for different purposes. It is the cluster of these reciprocal and accountable relationships with acknowledged codes of conduct that creates the trust, compassion and social capital - the conducive environment - for the promotion of human development and the alleviation of poverty. Accountability promotes peoples’ trust and confidence in government; and, in turn, reinforces legitimacy and integrity, and enhances dedication and commitment in those responsible in running and managing government.
Transparency
It is impossible to ensure accountability, detect weaknesses and evaluate their impacts on people, and design the strategies to enhance efficacy of the institutions and mechanisms of accountability if there were no popular awareness of such deficiencies. Transparency facilitates such awareness. Transparency entails availability of information on all matters related to the governance process. It means in particular that the conduct of public servants and the manner in which they perform their duties are known or knowable to those interested, and that the public servants themselves are aware of the rules and conventions that describe their duties and prescribe their performance. The bottom line of transparency is openness in the conduct of all types and levels of governance, public as well as private. It is this openness and exposure that stunts the temptations to corruption and circumscribes its growth.
…Transparency is a key aspect in sound public administration as governments have a moral and legal responsibility to report periodically on their performance. The essential principle that must be maintained is that the business of government must be transparent. Transparency focuses on public reporting with the objective of making apparent that what governments do is more visible, which hold them accountable for the way they exercise authority granted to them. The cost of failing to be transparent and underestimating the power of governing bodies can be high. A lack of transparency leads to mistrust and election losses.

It would be difficult to achieve either accountability or transparency without competence, and in spite of this attribute being so sadly lacking within UNDP, a very nice, concise definition of this is offered;
Competence entails the capacity to make timely and strategic decisions with regard to the immediate issues and the long-term policy options that are likely to emerge. It entails the overall analytical capability to identify the salient issues, design strategies and formulate the appropriate policies, and to manage the governance processes in response to the needs, wishes and aspirations of the people in a world that is rapidly changing. As a major institution in the governance processes, it is important that government is efficient and effective.
The effectiveness of the political leaders will depend partly on their own individual capabilities, primarily an issue of education, training, skills and experience; and partly on their legitimacy, primarily an issue of how they obtained the power and the manner in which they utilized it. In other words, are the political leaders reasonably educated and sufficiently experienced? Are they accountable to the Constitution and to those who elected them?

Although many of these things are entrenched in the substantial number of manuals and guidelines that exist within UNDP, and where they are diligently ignored, clearly, all measures could only be successfully implemented within the framework of an organization fully committed to prune away all existing unethical behaviour. This is a prime prerequisite and if an organization fails to do so it will only send a strong message throughout the organizational structure that it is acceptable to be less than honest. Given the various mandates performed in very often in difficult environments, the UN has undoubtedly a massive task. It is a recognized fact that the immensity, loose definitions of responsibilities and fuzzy organizational structures has historically plagued large UN agencies and has led to organizational deviance. What may not be so widely recognised is that the degree of unaccountability is staggering and has allowed most UN civil servants to remain largely immune both legally and morally.
The senior UN managers in charge of the day-to-day running are specifically invested with the responsibility of minimizing fraud opportunities by instituting cost-effective reliable internal controls and promoting ethical organizational behaviour. Holding the overall responsibility in designing, implementing and enforcing control mechanisms, management is ultimately responsible for perpetrated frauds, with external and internal auditors playing a major role in advising management to strengthen control of their organizational entities. Developing ethical leadership within a given organization are already effective measures against crime, but fall short on several aspects. It is therefore a bit disturbing to note that as a general rule there is no evidence that UNDP exercises due diligence in seeking to prevent and detect criminal conduct by its employees; has produced no clear statement of its managerial philosophy regarding internal fraud; and there appears to be no specific high-level personnel with substantial control over the organization appointed to oversee compliance with Standards. The UN’s Internal Audit Division is severely understaffed. The UN’s ability to pursue those charged with misuse of UN funds through national jurisdictions also needs strengthening. But these things are all pointless if there is no will on the part of management to implement these, and no sense of accountability within the organisation.
Management accountability is the expectation that managers are responsible for the quality and timeliness of programme and project performance, increasing results, controlling costs and mitigating adverse effects, and assuring that programs are managed with integrity and compliance with the organization’s goals.
On the other hand, if violations of organization compliance policy are not punished, it will only beget dishonest employees and create frustrations among honest colleagues.
Peter Eigen, Chairman of Transparency International (TI), the world’s leading NGO fighting corruption, seem to feel that “The corrupt are running out of places to hide. That is the message that runs through the Global Corruption Report 2003,” as he writes in his introduction. “Freedom of information is not enough,” he writes. “However professionally and accurately information is processed, corruption will continue to thrive without the vigilance of the media and civil society, and the bravery of investigative journalists and whistleblowers.”
The only place to hide, it seems, is within UNDP. I had written to Transparency International twice, without getting any response. This may have something to do with the fact that there exists a joint UNDP-Transparency International “partnership fund for transparency,” specifically to help non-governmental organizations involved in “corruption busting.” Within UNDP there are absolutely no functioning mechanisms to report fraud, no safe way to air grievances and a management bent on the imperative not only to condone fraud but also to go to extraordinary lengths to hide it. I find it difficult not to conclude that this attitude is condoned and probably supported at the highest level of the organisation. The highest level of UNDP consists of its administrator, Mark Malloch Brown. Everybody, except Erick de Mul, a very senior UN employee, was very concerned about what I had to tell. Each one of them promised to do something to have the situation regularised. They promised to do things, such as evaluations and audits that should be routine. And each one of them subsequently retracted and started avoiding me.
These days not a single UNDP staff member has the courage to look me in the eyes. It is comical to watch them as they either go to extreme lengths to avoid me or stare at the floor or the ceiling when in my company. They are all, each and every one of them without exception, an embarrassment to the international community and I only need to be near them to forcefully remind them of that. None of them has the courage to do something about it; to do so would force them to stare into the abyss of their own essential worthlessness, I guess. I appealed to their competence; they encourage and reward incompetence. I appealed to their credibility; they lost that a long time ago. I appealed to their sense of justice; the only justice that concerns them is contained in their pay package at the end of every month. I appealed to their humanity; human beings had become their enemies.
The Poor, Internally Displaced People, Refugees; the Vulnerable, all these words that they so glibly throw about are but words to them, categories of people at best. They have no idea that these are not categories of people but ordinary human beings in special circumstances. Instead of working hard to mitigate and alleviate these circumstances and the conditions that lead up to them, to be an enabler of private destinations, as it were, they behave as a norm as a paternalistic substitute for society, government, individual endeavour; but more often than not as a destructive presence rather than the expression of all the hopes and aspirations of humanity that the United Nations was created to serve and represent. The only people they serve are themselves.
In a Press Release from The UN News Centre on 08 August 2002 “Annan launches new UN-private sector alliance to fight poverty, AIDS, illiteracy,” we read;
UNDP Administrator Mark Malloch Brown said the reason he had approached the Secretary-General with the proposal to form the Commission resulted from a trip to Africa. That trip had confirmed what he had observed on many other field trips: despite the many real successes of development, a strategy of economic diversification and the development of a small and medium sized business sector was missing at the centre. The “pillar” was not there. The issue of building a private sector in developing countries was the critical next challenge in development. “It is the great mountain we need to climb together in this area,” Mr. Malloch Brown declared.

This is exactly what we started doing, before the pillar, if one can start mixing metaphors with the same wild abandon, was systematically destroyed by UNDP. The sad irony is that I would have taken this project and the results that it was achieving, and put it within the sort of framework upon which we could have built even further successes, where we could have climbed this great mountain, using the local-level initiatives, relevant and realistic strategies, and the energy and enterprise of the poor, if it was not for the fact that I believed in the lies of UNDP. I believed in both the lies that were told to me to my face, as well as those contained in their considerable literature about themselves. Our expectations were demeaned, our work marginalized, our problems ignored, our experiences unanalysed, and our skills under-utilized.
“The glib and oily art to speak and purpose not” as Shakespeare wrote in King Lear only gained meaning for me when I started reading a bit more closely and critically through the UNDP documentation. It has to be said that this is arguably the most verbose organisation in existence and reading through their literature is both an exercise in endurance and resistance to boredom.
One of the most readable, by their own account, is their Annual Report 2003, which they insist upon calling “A World of Development Experience” and it is not a world that I would wish upon my worst enemy. Perhaps acknowledging that UNDP had not performed to expectations in the past, the report tells us that; “Today, UNDP has come to the close of the most dramatic four-year internal transformation in our history. We are more capable than ever before of responding to the world’s development challenges because our organization is stronger, more focused and better connected. We seek and achieve results, and underscore accountability in all that we do. We look for new and creative opportunities to help people build better lives, through partnerships and the exchange of knowledge, while ensuring that our resources flow steadily behind our mission to reduce poverty.”
On the ground, naturally there is very little to support this sort of optimism. There may have been some restructuring but very little real reform, al lot of ad-hocism but no long-term vision.
Then, without boring the reader with any sort of practical information on what they had done in practice in order to improve, the report tells us things like; “UNDP embarked on its 2000-2003 Business Plan, aiming to take a fresh and more responsive approach to our mandate” and “Across all of them, we promote human rights and the empowerment of women” and “Critically, these reforms caught the attention of donor governments, who demonstrated their approval by reversing a seven-year downward trend in core resources” (except in Angola) and “we set out to become a decentralized, networked organization that gives policy expertise and practical solutions where they are needed most: in programme countries” (now where else would they be needed?) and, most promisingly “We are coming close to that goal.”
Just for in case we are still sceptical we should be pleased to be told that, after thirty-seven years; “Last year, for the first time ever, we brought together all Deputy Resident Representatives for training in Bangkok, Thailand to enhance their capabilities as managers. A Resident Coordinator assessment centre evaluated 89 existing and newly appointed Resident Coordinators and Representatives.”
UNDP also started using “staff surveys, along with yearly country office polls of headquarters products and services, that are comprehensive measurement tools that provide insight on our strengths and weaknesses, opening avenues for better performance and greater accountability” and they came to the earth shattering conclusion that; “They have underscored, for example, the critical importance of improving people’s basic skills and matching staff more closely with their jobs.” This is the same organisation that has taken it upon themselves to tell others how to manage their affairs. This is the same organisation that claims to represent a unique pool of knowledge and skills; yet had just learned for themselves “the critical importance of improving people’s basic skills and matching staff more closely with their jobs.”
They are so proud of what they had achieved that they are convinced that “Partners Say They Value UNDP” quoting “A survey across 118 countries” that “found high approval rates.” They then produce the following very encouraging results: All respondents 87%; Governments 92%; UN Agencies 82%; International Financial Institutions 78%; Bilaterals 74%; Civil Society 86% and Private Sector 90%. The opinion of Beneficiaries, the only people that really count, is not mentioned anywhere, but after a six-year involvement with UNDP, coincidentally at the same time as their so-called “most dramatic four-year internal transformation,” one can well believe that these could be what UNDP simply classify as Other 90% and Unknown 95%. Now one would really want to believe that there could be people on the receiving end of UNDP’s endeavours; and that these people, as well as all the entities mentioned, would so wholeheartedly endorse this spurious organization. Yet the fact that UNDP quote as its source the “UNDP External Partnerships Survey 2002” as well as considerable personal experience to the contrary does serious harm to the credibility of these results. However much I, as a smoker, want to believe in those surveys that tells you that smoking is not only good for your health, but also that it makes you better looking and incredibly popular, I have to take into consideration that these surveys are invariably produced by the tobacco companies and thus not very believable. Common sense also tells me that smoking is bad for me. In fact any ten-minute conversation with any UNDP staff member, the source incidentally of most complaints regarding the organisation, would completely belie those results.
Research Conducted for the 2020 Fund by GlobeScan Inc for the Second Survey of the 2020 Global Stakeholder Panel, dated March 2004 and entitled “What NGO Leaders Want for the Year 2020 NGO, Leaders’ Views on Globalisation, Governance, and Sustainability” has the following to say:
“Respondents were asked a number of questions dealing specifically with the UN and its leadership capacity. Over nine in ten (94%) NGO leaders agree that the UN system needs to be significantly strengthened in both powers and effectiveness. Further, pluralities of NGO leaders think it is “very important” that the UN Security Council (55%), the UN General Assembly (42%), and the UN secretariat and its agencies (39%) are reformed to achieve their ideal vision of global governance. Fully six in ten (60%) say the same about multilateral agencies. In all cases, Southern NGO leaders are more strongly in favour of UN reform than their Northern peers. Less than one in two (45%) NGO leaders agree that the UN is capable of dealing with current world challenges. Despite this, only two in ten (19%) believe that the UN should be disbanded and replaced with new global institutions. The desire for UN reform is evident among Northern and Southern NGO leaders. However, Southern leaders (25%) are slightly more likely than those in the North (14%) to believe that the UN should be disbanded and replaced with new global institutions. This finding, which is consistent with global public opinion, is particularly important given that a large part of the UN’s work is directed toward the developing world. While NGO leaders are as sceptical as the global public regarding the UN’s capacity to manage world challenges (45% vs. 44%) in the wake of the Iraq conflict, they are much more likely than the global public to believe that the UN system needs to be strengthened in both powers and effectiveness (94% vs. 77%). As a whole, however, NGO leaders are less likely than the global public to believe that the UN should be disbanded (19% vs. 36%). This suggests that while leaders believe reforms are needed, the UN continues to have a relevant and necessary role in their ideal vision of global governance, more so than the general public.”
And UNDP tries to tell us that they, amongst all of the UN agencies, have almost universal credibility and that people value them, whatever that may mean.
Reading further into the UNDP report, that contains such worthwhile issues as; Conflicts and Natural Disasters: Bridging the Gap; Human and Economic Development: Priorities That Benefit the Poor; Nation Building: A Foundation in Democratic Governance; People and Our Planet: The Road to Sustainable Development; HIV/AIDS: Coping with Loss, Advocating for Hope, we soon come to the conclusion that they are not offering anything concrete. They do not even say what they mean by development. Is it economic growth? Is it being less corrupt and more transparent? Is it being kind to women and nice to one another? Are we supposed to become richer or happier? Or both? The nicest definition that UNDP ever came up with; “Human beings are not only the purpose, but also the means of development” sounds nice but is largely meaningless. And all the nice explanations in their report are likewise largely generic, feel-good, touchy-feely sorts of stuff, clothed in flowery and profound language. The words transparency, good governance, democracy, accountability and many others are bandied about without being defined. UNDP, an organisation noted for the absence of these concepts within their own structures, promises that once these issues are addressed, and that they will address them, the world will be just a dandy place. Nowhere are we told exactly how they will do this. They admit that the problems are serious but are optimistic that it can be solved. It is a bit like wanting to fix a car and reading everything on the principles of internal combustion, the science, insofar that it is a science, of alloys and metal fatigue, the elastic properties of rubber and Newton’s Laws of motion. These are all fascinating and useful things to know, but one won’t get very far in getting a car fixed that way. A workshop manual for the specific model of car would be far more useful.
We are told that UNDP has $2.83 billion available in core funding. They mention a success here and there but these are but a few selected and specific examples, the veracity of which is a bit dubious. No numbers are given to accurately gauge if these are really successes. Remember that UNDP had very proudly presented our project as a success as well, even though the success had absolutely nothing to do with them, and at the time they were actively working towards its eventual failure.[1] What they are doing in the report is public relations; there is no consistent, realistic analysis, containing both successes and failures, and that provides a coherent overview on how they are spending their funds and what affect this is having. By the way, this amount of money is not small change, but on the other hand it is not a particularly large percentage of the hundred or so billion that circulates in some form another annually under the banner of humanitarian aid. If UNDP considers itself as a major player in the development world it is certainly not as a result of their financial clout.
These things are all a bit beside the point anyway. The arguments in this document, their abstract nature aside, lack any sort of logical and analytical rigour. They make no attempt to explain how all the issues that they want to address interact with one another or their relative importance in this so-called development. There is no real consistent causal relationship between good governance and democracy, human rights and corruption, economic growth and transparency or any other combination of the previous. More transparency does not necessarily lead to more economic growth although a lack of transparency may or may not impede such growth. AIDS may well devastate the economies of some of the countries where it is endemic; in others the economies may be strong enough to absorb the negative effect of the disease. In yet others there are no meaningful economies to destroy and the effects of AIDS may well be just one of many factors impeding the creation of a sound economy. In yet others AIDS is virtually non-existent or negligible. Cultures vary so widely that there is no single universal approach to combating the disease.
Operating from a disturbingly thin base of knowledge, with respect to the core rationale of their work; how change in governance occurs, and the real effects of the changes that are produced, UNDP prescribe rule-of-law programs to cure a remarkably wide array of ailments in developing and post-communist countries, from corruption and surging crime to lagging foreign investment and growth. Despite this, these good governance promoters are surprisingly short of understanding and knowledge in many areas: about what the essence of good governance actually is, whether it primarily resides in certain institutional configurations or in more diffuse normative structures; about how good governance develops in societies and how such development can be stimulated beyond simplistic efforts to copy institutional forms and what kinds of larger societal effects will result from specific changes in rule-of-law institutions. They do not even think of explaining how exactly promoting the good governance will contribute to economic development and democratisation.
One does not need to be an economist to know that wonderful things can be done to economic growth through the simple expedient of introducing slavery and forced labour. If there is a labour shortage, child labour will further increase profit and thus economic growth. Any industrialist can tell one that measures to protect the environment cost money and that they would be prefer not to introduce them.
Lenin and Stalin had but the vaguest of notions and even less interest in human rights, yet transformed Russia from a feudal state into a superpower in twenty years. Those Russians not freezing to death in Siberia lived in the best houses ever offered to the Russian people. They had reasonable salaries, free education and health care and enough to eat. If the Russian system failed because it is not democratic, why then does it seem to work in China? The World Bank has begun to acknowledge that the countries most successful in poverty alleviation are China, Vietnam and Cuba. All have sluggish or stagnant economies, none are democratic; Cuba has been isolated and receives none of the so-called benefits of globalisation. Libya has few democratic institutions but a largely content and wealthy population. America has the largest, fastest growing economy ever and strong democratic institutions but corruption is endemic; it is pervasive in everything from rubbish removal to health care. They maintain the death sentence and apply it with alarming enthusiasm, thirty years after most of the rest of the world had abandoned it. Italy has a stable economy but cannot elect an honest prime minister or maintain a parliament for more than a few weeks at a time.
The fact of the matter is that there are no generic solutions. The interrelationship between many of the concepts that UNDP throws about will differ from place to place and from time to time. Most solutions will be found locally or nationally within priorities defined at those levels. All solutions will require intelligence. All solutions will require unique skills based on unique knowledge of unique circumstances. Realising, for example, “the critical importance of improving people’s basic skills and matching staff more closely with their jobs” is not a unique skill. It is common sense. One does not need “staff surveys, along with yearly country office polls” to tell one that. All solutions will be found by people who recognise that failures are a necessary part of the learning process; who can cope with that in a mature manner and who will have the courage to correct their mistakes.
There is a saying that goes “All facts and events in history happen twice; the first time as farce the second as tragedy.” As Europe emerged from their agrarian economies in the nineteenth century and started industrialising, poverty became endemic and then entrenched within a system that dealt with it through narrow-minded, simplistic ignorance. It took two major, destructive wars to convince the international community to tackle the root causes of European poverty head on. Poverty is the most complex of human enemies, and is never a farce. It rebuffs narrow sectoral solutions, devours inappropriate development programmes, feeds on protectionism and exploitation that prevents its victims from earning their way through trade. Those lessons now lie forgotten in our past and the world community is yet again stumbling through the same situation committing the same errors through exactly the same narrow-minded, simplistic ignorance. And, far from being part of a possible solution, UNDP is simply a mirror of the problem.
It is also a large organisation, therefore it is perfectly possible that one part of it may be doing a reasonable job, distracting attention from the fact that a large part of it is involved in questionable practices. One of the biggest successes, and the biggest contradiction, of UNDP is their publications, that can frequently be of excellent quality. These are mostly done by consultants, contracted for a specific purpose through a much abused system. Yet one of their biggest failures is that none of the excellent ideas and concepts contained in many of their publications ever become part UNDP as an organisation. It may just be that they do manage to solve all the problems they promise to, but this will be by accident; they themselves will remain as irrelevant and incapable as ever. It is like the story of having enough monkeys typing away at enough typewriters for long enough, sooner or later one of them will come up with one of the plays by Shakespeare.
Today we have an agency incapable of keeping their own house in order, yet try and convince others, through meaningless platitudes, that they are dealing with some of the most serious and intractable issues in modern society.
This is an organisation that is very seriously adrift. Unless their restructuring involves disinterested and outside advice and guidance, and most important of all, input from their constituents, any so-called improvement in the organisation will be and come across as patch-up jobs.
Reading through their Country Reports and Country Co-operation Frameworks, another exercise in tedium, further confirms this. Nowhere is the reader told how many people have benefited from their efforts and how much it had cost. Meaningful financial statements from UNDP are a rarity. One is confronted with qualified and vague statement after qualified and vague statement: “project results will benefit from the introduction of better management systems,” and “achievements will be improved through monitoring and evaluation.” What they are really saying, and saying so in report after report, is that they are fucking up, and until they can do that in those words, they will be known as an organisation characterised by historic ignorance, greed, and irresponsibility; leaving a legacy of inefficiency, ineptitude, and outright corruption in its wake.
Behind the carefully constructed myth created by UNDP lies but a mass of contradictions, unfulfilled objectives and broken promises.
At the same time, the United Nations, slowly and subtly, is assuming more and more power for itself. Within the last few years a permanent International Criminal Court had been established, with the main purpose to prosecute War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity. After the turmoil and disgust created by the Second World War, the Nuremberg Trails were intended to send a message that nobody is immune from prosecution for horrible crimes such as genocide. The UN system, established in 1945 also established the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to address the economic aspects that lead to the causes for interstate war. The establishment of the UN effectively made the principle of rule through conquest illegal, thus removing one of the major motivations for interstate war. The UN thus started dealing with a multitude of other issues that it was not really designed to solve.
Just after the state of Israel was declared and war had broken out with the Arab states, the UN established its first peace mission. The assassination of UN mediator Count Folke Bernadotte, by Israeli extremists in September 1948, whilst trying to negotiate ceasefires and suggesting the establishment Jerusalem as an international city, demonstrated to what extent the concept of neutrality, largely respected throughout the Second World War, was no longer valued. The UN still has not learned that lesson.
The safety of UN staff would from now on have to depend on something else for their safety; credibility, competence, the ability to walk the tightrope of international relationships with integrity and skill. When they failed to do this in Rwanda and Burundi, and when a weak and powerless peacekeeping mission in Bosnia resulted in large-scale massacres of civilians, it was decided that the International Criminal Court should become a permanent fixture.
In spite of a lot of resistance, as well as a great deal of legal and moral pitfalls, this court is a brilliant idea.
Equally brilliant is the idea that international companies could find their activities subject to investigation and censure by United Nations human rights officials under principles adopted by the sixth session of the Ad Hoc Committee for the Negotiation of the UN Convention against Corruption on 08 August 2003. This took years to arrange and to bring together all the areas where divergence exists. They even had to search for adequate definitions of corruption, such things as assets recovery and deal with the question of whether to sanction only public, or also private, corruption. Finally, the UN’s draft Norms on the Responsibilities of Transnational Corporations asserted that companies should be subject to the kind of enforcement procedures at the UN Commission for Human Rights previously applied only to nation states.
In a truly remarkable development, a top adviser on organised crime at the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Samuel Gonzalez-Ruiz, resigned in protest from the agency, that had been at the forefront of the Anti-corruption treaty, alleging it is riddled with corruption despite a recent clean-up drive. On 03 November 2003, Thomas Catýn in London reported in the Financial Times that Mr. Gonzalez-Ruiz has “accused management of turning a blind eye to “a pattern of misappropriation of funds” and “clear acts of corruption and mismanagement” by staff.” In a letter of resignation he wrote, “One can observe a pattern of irregularities in the issuing of contracts, petty corruption, and abuses of administrative discretion committed by staff with managerial responsibilities over projects and programs within my working domain.” The article entitled “Adviser quits over ‘corruption’ at UN agency” goes further to say that; “management took no action to investigate cases of internal corruption by staff, even after they were provided with detailed evidence” and “that whistleblowers within the agency were routinely punished and that corrupt officials enjoyed “active and/or passive protection from top management.”
Mr Gonzalez-Ruiz, who advises governments on fighting corruption, wrote that the UN does not itself abide by the principles enshrined in its treaty. “I do not have the stomach to be promoting a fight against organised crime and corruption around the world when I am working in an office that tolerates administrative and in some cases criminal violations," he wrote in a letter to UNODC director, Antonio Maria Costa. Mr Costa said that he had not read the letter and was “very surprised” at the allegations, which he claimed he had not heard before. Mr Costa, an economist and former secretary-general of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, was brought in in May 2003 to clean up the scandal-plagued agency after several European donors had cut off funding. He had previously told the Financial Times that he was successfully overseeing a new era of transparency and good governance within the organisation and “recovering from a situation that led to an abysmal relationship with donor governments. But critics, including former employees, charge that he has done little of substance. “He has engaged in little more than window dressing,” said Tony White, a former anti-drug official at the UN agency.”
What is less brilliant, to the point of being stupid, probably dangerous, is the fact that the expansion of justice and the expansion of the application of rights, a further intrusion into social, economic and political life as it were, is all done under the umbrella of a single organisation that is already charged with a multitude of other issues. What is glaringly absent in all of this is that this organisation itself is not subject to any form of sanction and control. This would not be desirable even if the UN was a perfect organisation, but the more ambitious the initiatives, however, the more glaringly apparent the UN’s problems become.
Although Lord Luton has told us that the only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history, we should never forget Hegel’s admonition that “All power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
It can hardly be expected that the UN will on its own account and initiative set up and implement the sort of effective controls that would permit its own staff to be taken to court and perhaps imprisoned for such crimes as, for example committing fraud, or hiding fraud.
The United Nations will never take the sorts of steps to prevent themselves from going out of control. It may be noble for the United Nations to intervene when corrupt government results in hardship, poverty and suffering, but who will make the decision to intervene? The United Nations? Who will keep the over-powered and over-privileged UN bureaucrats in check, if there is no electorate to do so? It is often easy for somebody in New York or London to suggest that the UN should be sent to sort out some embarrassment in some remote cesspit somewhere. It is not always so easy for the people living in those cesspits to deal with the problems that the UN bring with them, in addition to the problems that they already suffer. Bringing with you nothing but ignorance, combining that with arrogance, throw in a healthy dollop of corruption and all you have is a recipe for causing offence.
What is needed is a separation of power and responsibility. It is good that there is now an International Criminal Court.
This should be followed up with an International Human Rights Court. The investigation of human rights abuses, at all levels and in all its manifestations, should really now be handled by a separate international authority, of which organisations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Transparency International and others, international, regional, national, and local, could be the controlling and managing members. The UN High Commission for Human Rights should also be just a member of this body, perhaps concentrating on human rights abuses within the UN system, where apparently it is endemic.
Human Rights are an important issue, also delicate and sensitive. There are many who believe that it is not even a topic for international discussion. Anybody intervening on behalf of others, for whatever reason, and no matter how good the outcome, is skating on very thin moral ice. The contradiction is that humanitarian aid depends for its own validity on the universality of human values; this dichotomy is not understood, it is not explored sufficiently and it is not respected.
More responsibility for Peacekeeping should be passed to regional military organisations of which NATO is but one option. They could intervene, more forcefully and effectively, usually but not necessarily at the request of the UN, and probably be under a separate command. One recent effort has been the proposal to establish an all-African intervention force to deal with regional conflicts. Through the formation of the African Crisis Response Force the US, for example, is seeking to form a partnership with Africa, Europe, the UN, the African Union and other entities to build the capabilities of African militaries to respond to international crises. It builds on ongoing peacekeeping initiatives in Africa and throughout the world. If successful, it will answer a critical long-term need on the African continent and improve the international community’s near-term ability to respond to a potential massive humanitarian crisis almost anywhere in Africa. There is also panoply of assistance programs, through the United Nations Standby Arrangements System, the African Union’s proposal that members voluntarily earmark troops for peacekeeping operations, and the Western European Union’s Joint Initiative on Peacekeeping and Conflict Resolution in Africa. These concepts also builds on efforts to improve regional peacekeeping forces elsewhere in the world through programs such as the Partnership for Peace with former Warsaw Pact nations, through assistance in the formation of an integrated Baltic Brigade for IFOR (the Bosnian Peace Implementation Force), and through peacekeeping exercises in Latin America.
The responsibility for development should likewise rest with the various regional development communities and with organisations such as the African Union. These organisations could then collaborate with the World Trade Organisation, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, putting them under more pressure for more equitable globalisation, fewer barriers to trade internationally yet respecting regional and local needs and Poverty Reduction Strategies that actually reflect the needs and realities of regions and countries.
In 1992, Paul Streeten, in a monograph on International Governance at the University of Sussex made the statement, “The state has become too big for the small things, and too small for the big things. The small things call for delegation downwards to the local level. The big things for delegation upward, for co-ordination between national policies, or for transnational institutions.
One should take note of the plural in the last sentence. The UN should not have too much control or responsibility across such a wide spectrum of issues. It should be remembered that this international organization is not an independent agent; its actions are authorized and often performed by member states. States benefit from their use of global and regional organizations because such cooperative efforts diffuse responsibility, rather than leaving even positive intervention in the hands of one state. The world community can act with its moral authority and the material resources provided by its members only when the organization maintains the highest levels of integrity and professionalism. The UN should also be subject to the same principle of diffusion of responsibility on which it was created.
It is time for the extent of the United Nations’ value to be put into perspective. The United Nations is not our “moral guardians” or “mankind’s best hope for peace” or the “conscience of humanity” as they like to tell us, but merely an association of the world’s governments created for a limited purpose. As a equal partner amongst independent but inter-dependant organisations the United Nations would become a minor player in the international system, and kept within such confines it can do a modest amount of good; as would each of the other organisations within their own geographical spheres and areas of responsibility. Collectively this may add up to a tremendous amount of good, a good that a single superpower, for example, may find slightly more difficult to manipulate for its own ends. Outside these boundaries the United Nations has proved a failure, lacking both the credibility and the capacity to meaningfully intervene in some of the more intractable problems that afflict the world today. Within such bounds there may be some incentive for the UN to become more focussed, reform itself, to adapt in order to remain relevant and to become more accountable and really make a difference. The UN system is operating in a world of much greater complexity and danger than when the UN was founded. In order to tackle the range of urgent problems demanding coherent attention, the UN’s machinery and capacity must be streamlined and strengthened.
Where would UNDP, the agency who, mindless of the need to explain the reasons for their near consistent failures, blithely continue to make evermore ambitious promises, fit into such a scheme? They would fit into the same place as where most of their projects end up. In the rubbish bin, another failed idea.
The skills and creativity that they claim to have is in fact to be found in abundance amongst the people that they so diligently ignore, even despise: the poor, the marginalized, the displaced, the refugees, the same people who endure, and even thrive against tremendous odds. These are people who do not have to remain within sight of a five-star hotel in order to survive. These are the people that represent what being human is really all about; survival against the odds, a being with more endurance than any other living thing, that can adapt to almost every condition, that can find their own solutions without spinning a web of deceit and lies around themselves.
In the same way now, at the sight of the hunger, cold and degradation of thousands of people, I understood not with my mind or my heart but with my whole being, that the existence of tens of thousands of such people. . . while I and thousands of others over-eat ourselves with beefsteaks and sturgeon. . . no matter what all the learned men may say about its necessity – is a crime, not committed once but constantly; and that I with my luxury not merely tolerate it but share in it.[2]

[1] Also remember that the failure is related to the involvement of UNDP in it. It is functioning today, without UNDP involvement.
[2] Tolstoy, L, What Then Must We Do? 1886

J O S H U A P U N D I T: More on the UN

2007-04-12T04:29:00.000-07:00

J O S H U A P U N D I T: More on the UN

J O S H U A P U N D I T: The UN disses America..again

2007-04-12T04:21:00.000-07:00

J O S H U A P U N D I T: The UN disses America..again

The Impossibility of Getting it Right

2007-03-11T09:56:00.000-07:00

This post has been moved to http://leonkukkuk.blogspot.com/

Fighting Corruption with Corruption

2007-02-18T21:27:00.000-08:00

In June 1998, less than a month into my new employment on a United Nations project in Huambo, Angola, a country at the time on the brink of war, I determined that something needed to be done with urgency to relieve the enormous stress I was under.
This stress was caused not so much by the very insecure circumstances that surrounded me; the grinding poverty, the cynical fatalism and the fear of war.
It was caused by some very basic questions that I was asking myself: “What am I supposed to do?” “How am I supposed to do it?” “Who will support me in doing it?”
I felt that the lives of many people depended on the answers to those questions. I also felt that these were pretty basic questions, and that asking the right people for answers would be relatively easy and that the answers would be, should be, pretty straightforward.
The only reason I found myself in Huambo, after all, was to use other peoples’ money to assist in making the lives of the people in Huambo at least a little better.
In the end, however, I had to figure out the answers for myself, and in doing so, had to come up with many, many more questions. I am still searching for answers to those questions.
My first port of call was the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the agency that had planned and financed our project. I would eventually go round and round in circles but always come back to this agency.
There I met many people, immaculate people, with ready smiles and a ready promise to answer my questions.
It took me years to realise – and it took so long because first my innate belief in the basic decency of human beings had to be destroyed – that what these people were saying was: “Come let us lead you up the garden path, and, guess what?, we are going to make you pay for the journey.”
Because what these people were doing in fact was stealing.
The project that I was working on, and it was and is by no means an exception, had little, if anything, to do with making the lives of local people better. Behind an apparently legitimate façade, and unbelievable, seemingly needless complexity, it was a basic run-of-the-mill scam to siphon of development money for individual benefit.
Behind their immaculate smiles and glib rhetoric all these nice people I met from the UN really were, to put it very bluntly, but a bunch of crooks.
Not real crooks, that one can secretly admire, if one is so inclined, for their initiative and creativity, preying on the greed of others to take what is not theirs.
What we are dealing with here are bottom-feeders, unscrupulous parasites that prey on the poorest of the poor, the disenfranchised, and the victims of war, famine, drought and floods. In other words those already so burdened with the effort of basic survival that they are unable to defend themselves from further abuse by those who arrive, often unannounced and uninvited, to steal from them in the name of humanitarian and development aid.
I would come across one Erick de Mul, a thirty-odd year veteran of UNDP, and a man in a senior position, that is so convinced that UNDP has the right to plan and finance all manner of things, yet have no need to accept responsibility for the consequences of what they plan and finance, that he puts forth this argument under a UNDP letterhead, signs it and sends it out into the world with all the smug confidence of somebody that considers himself outside of and above the law.
This is a man who dealt with my questions by courageously instructing his minions to lie, deceive and threaten on his behalf. He is by all accounts a much admired and respected official of the UN system.
Almost too late I realised that it is pointless asking the crooks any questions since that would require them to admit that they are crooks and even to tell me why they are such a thing.

I thought it may be a good idea to write a book.
It was also time to inform The Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) of my misgivings.
There were however several lawyers, with whom I was also in contact, who seemed to feel that it is not recommended to place much faith in this organisation. The problem with this office, created somewhat reluctantly by the UN, only in 1994, after considerable pressure from a small number of member states, is that it is not fully independent of the system, as one would expect it to be. This meant that in effect it was subject to all the weaknesses in accountability so common with in the UN, and it appears as though it was pretty quickly co-opted to provide a façade of transparency that did not in fact exist.
As just one of many possible examples, on 02 June 2006, FOX News published an article “Report Slams UN Investigators” raising questions about the UN’s ability to investigate wrongdoing and Secretary General Kofi Annan's willingness to do so. The article details an independent investigation by Washington lawyers Jerome Ackerman and John Vanderstar into charges that that former Under-Secretary General Dileep Nair was promoting favourites in violation of UN rules and possibly doing so in return for money and sex while serving as head of OIOS. The report revealed that Nair violated UN promotion rules exactly as charged. Nevertheless, Kofi Annan ordered the case closed because the investigation apparently found no evidence that Nair received money or sex in exchange for promotions and even wrote Nair a personal letter expressing “personal dismay” for suffering “unnecessary and unmerited public innuendo.” He also ignored details in the report on how personnel at OIOS stonewalled investigators by failing to provide requested computer records and internal documents, The report stated: “To date, neither a response from OIOS to the March 2006 request nor any further OIOS documents have been provided,” and that OIOS “limited interviews of individuals who might have provided relevant information.”
Dileep Nair, refused to make himself available to investigators and dismissed the investigation as a “witch hunt.”
The leader of the investigation expressed surprise at the low level of cooperation given by OIOS, the very office charged with enforcing UN regulations.
"We did not get what we thought we would get," he told FOX News.

Misgivings that OIOS is not to be trusted seemed to bear out when my attempts between 2003 and 2005 solicited not a single response from them, apart from the occasional acknowledgement that they had received material from me.
On 30 November 2006 I wrote to them once more, more out of habit, than in the expectation of any real results:
“Christopher Burnham, (ex) UN Under-Secretary-General for Management, invites anybody, at any level, with information about UN corruption to come forward and that they will be protected. I am nevertheless unable to find out how to come forward, and exactly how people are protected except through OIOS, an institute which I do not trust and have been told not to trust. On several occasions have I informed OIOS about this issue, without response, then also informed them about my book on the matter, before and after publication also without response.”

Remarkably, on 15 January 2007, I received a response from one Ellen F. Gardner, Investigator, Investigations Division:“Our office, OIOS, received your email and document regarding a book you have written whereby you state there is corruption and misuse of foreign aid to Africa by Non-Governmental Organizations and the United Nations Agencies in particular UNDP. In order for me to look into this case would you please contact me at your earliest convenience at the telephone number below.”

Although a welcome sign of life, in a sea of indifference over many years, I still had some misgivings. In the first instance I felt that the UN should concern themselves with “corruption and misuse of foreign aid to Africa by Non-Governmental Organizations” only once it had gotten its own house in order. I do write about my own concerns on this issue reasonably extensively. I hardly believe that the United Nations has any moral authority to deal with them.
In the second instance I was afraid that the request for me to phone her would once again be an attempt to lead me up the garden path, once again at my own expense.
Therefore, expressing nevertheless my pleasure at hearing from her, I suggested that she rather call me.
It was also a way of asking, perhaps demanding, but doing so as politely as possible, that maybe the organisation should first establish a relationship of trust with me, before making any demands on me to work with them, phone them or making any commitments to them.
OIOS has since that date once again been prominent only in its silence.

One of the main problems that I have with OIOS reports, is that they tend to make large sweeping statements: “The UN has done a great deal to increase efficiency and overall accountability,” that it is working hard to “promote efficient management and reduce waste, fraud and abuse,” that it had “recommended millions in savings and recoveries for the UN and persuaded UN programme managers to implement hundreds of recommendations for improving management and internal controls,” and that “OIOS investigations also led to successful convictions of UN staff and others for fraud and stealing UN funds.”
In spite of all these claims, none of the reports ever mention any names. They tend to be so weak on specific detail that it is nearly impossible to confirm the truth of their claims one way or the other. On the rare occasions when one does manage to find some detail, it is invariably for misdemeanours. With disturbing regularity, complainants, even highly credible ones, are admonished for “harming the good name of the United Nations.”
Some reports go to such extremes not to offend anybody that it does little more than narrate the issues at hand before politely requesting the interested parties to be a bit more diligent. It seems to act entirely in the best interests, not of truth and justice, but of a corrupt and inept bureaucracy, that is self-perpetuating, self-serving and self-absorbed. OIOS often comes across as a farce, acting primarily in the interests of the multitude of the “petty despots” that abound with the UN system.
It is many of these selfsame “petty despots” that I name and that I feel that need to be investigated. For the sake of completeness these are the individuals that I personally name and believe need to answer to allegations, some of them serious: “Mark Malloch Brown, James Lee, Dimitri Samaras, Bisrat Aklilu, Michele Falavigna, Erick de Mul, Michel Balima, Stanislaus Nkwain, Stephen Kinloch, Francisco de Almeida.”
These are by and large senior UN public servants.
Dimitri Samaras for example, is an individual who as Deputy Director of the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) had received in excess of $160 000.00 to provide Administrative and Overhead Support (AOS) to our project in Huambo. With that money he may have visited the project once, although there is no confirmation of this, and had written, or instructed somebody to write, not a single report regarding the support that they were supposedly providing, nor did he ever bother to respond to concerns raised over a number of years.
When those concerns culminated in a request for an audit, he became highly indignant, claiming that a project that he clearly knew absolutely nothing about was a fantastic success, and writing: “So to question it today, as it was done by UNDP new Leadership was indeed not a plus in terms of projecting a positive image but rather was felt as some kind of “retaliation” for which UNOPS is not part of.”
If this Dimitri Samaras considers something as routine as an audit - and surely for the expenditure of more than one and a half million Dollars, an audit should be routine – as “some kind of “retaliation,” is there perhaps not some chance that he may not also consider an OIOS investigation as “some kind of “ retaliation?”
Is he likely to co-operate with this investigation?
Is OIOS capable of taking him to task?

I need some sort of assurance on these sorts of issues, and not having heard anything from OIOS in almost a month I wrote to them on 14 February 2007:
“I am following up on the e-mail that I had received from you in order to establish if you are indeed following up on this case, and if so, what progress you had made to date.
Notwithstanding the fact that I had refused to phone you (it is a matter of principle), I am nevertheless pleased that finally there seem to be at least the possibility of some meaningful progress regarding my concerns.
I am sure that not many people go through the trouble of reading all OIOS reports, but I do, and based on this as well as my previous experience of being dragged into all sorts of UN “investigations” (read cover-ups), invariably at my own expense in terms of time and money, I am reluctant to become the recipient of the apparently standard OIOS procedure that invariably finds a few token irregularities (usually in procurement), mildly admonishes the wrongdoer(s) for this, then concludes by castigating the complainant(s) for “harming the good name of the United Nations.” I would be far more co-operative once I have some confidence in the process.
I would also be very interested in finding out exactly what it is that you are investigating (or intend to investigate). Although my concerns are often framed within the context of my own experiences, they do in fact go a lot deeper than that, in the manner that funds are managed by the UN (specifically UNDP) in general. It is encouraging to read that the Secretary General has now ordered an investigation into all UN Programmes and Funds, yet it still remains to be seen to what extent it will be able to penetrate the quagmire of abuse and fraud that it is bound to encounter.
From the literature you may pick up on the fact that for a long time there had been some concern about the manner in which UNDP had decided to micro-manage the UNDP Trust Fund in Angola (worth some $100 million) and how most project proposals were not authorised even years after they had been submitted.
Locally it had been felt, and there is probably some truth in this, that the reason for this state of affairs was that all project proposals were subjected to a single requirement, and if it did not meet this requirement, then it was simply ignored by the staff at UNDP.
This requirement was “What is in it for me?”
That is probably the reason why the RUTEC project was implemented, in spite of being totally inappropriate, in spite of local objections, in spite of not following the required procedures for authorisation, why it always bounced out of the way of any audit and why such a large succession of UNDP officials went to such lengths to cover it up.
It remains nevertheless only the tip of the iceberg, maybe of importance only because one person had the courage (or stupidity) to keep on asking questions. I hope that it would contribute in its own way to having far larger concerns and questions raised and finally answered. I had perhaps to date been singularly unsuccessful in having even basic questions answered, that may be disturbing in itself, and indicative of how much may in fact be wrong within the UN system, but I am convinced that by asking questions for long enough, eventually the lack of any response will become its own answer.
Finally I would like to request your assistance in two other issues that I am following up upon.
Regarding the claim that “OIOS investigations also led to successful convictions of UN staff and others for fraud and stealing UN funds” that has made an appearance on the OIOS website and several reports over the years; I attempted to track down some such convictions.
Although my efforts have resulted in a number of interesting responses from various authorities, I have not been able to track down any specific cases. I am most interested in finding out if any staff at UN development agencies had ever been prosecuted, specifically in Africa or as a result of programmes implemented in Africa. Specific, but not necessarily comprehensive, information that can both quantify and qualify this OIOS claim would be particularly useful to me.
I am also interested in following up on the statement made by a number of Secretary General documents published in 2005 and 2006, that UN staff responsible for waste and abuse of funds would be required to reimburse the organisation for those losses.
Has this ever happened?
I hope that you would either be able to get this information for me, or alternatively put me in touch with somebody that can do so.”

It is not only important that justice is done. It is not even good enough to be told that apparently justice is being done. It has to be seen to be done. It may be highly embarrassing to the individuals involved, but claims that “investigations also led to successful convictions of UN staff and others for fraud and stealing UN funds” is virtually meaningless unless one can also follow up on who was convicted, for what, through which system of justice and what was the sentence that was passed down.

Without that the “fight against corruption” becomes but a façade; and that façade is in itself but a form of corruption.

Stumbling About in Blissful Arrogance

2006-11-27T00:16:00.001-08:00

This Item has been moved to http://leonkukkuk.blogspot.com/

Press Release (and the resulting tantrum by UNDP)

2006-11-27T00:16:00.000-08:00

Talk about corruption is the order of the day. Of all the bad things that are happening in Africa, corruption is slowly reaching the top of the list. Corruption is perhaps not as bad as genocide, but it is also a crime against humanity. Corruption is a killer of initiative and trust. It drives away foreign investment and undermines the development of the rule of law. But most importantly, corruption robs Africans of a better life and African children especially of a future.
The UN has initiated a “Convention Against Corruption” that has been signed by more than 100 countries.
Some of the most infamous incidences of corruption include Mobutu Sese Seko, the former president of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) who allegedly stole somewhere between $5 and 14 billion, and Sani Abacha, former president of Nigeria, who reportedly looted more than $2 billion. Both these former leaders are now dead, but their legacy of corruption continues to afflict their nations.African governments are warned time and again that increased aid flows continue to be compromised by the issue of accountability in the face of serious and well-documented corruption. The South African government most notably wants to be seen as clean and free of corruption.
Chances are, however that you still don’t know about one of the biggest scams of our time: The misuse of foreign aid to Africa by Non-Governmental Organisations, United Nations Agencies and business operating in Africa.
Perhaps it is because it has been such an embarrassment to democratic governments in the developed world and private organizations who keep on believing that foreign aid will help Africa that this issue never gains the attention that it deserves.
Now a new book “Letters to Gabriella: Angola's Last War for Peace, What the UN Did and Why” (ISBN: 1891855670) published by Florida Literary Foundation, takes the reader into the bizarre and murky world of development assistance, an insider view on how UN agencies function and how businesses have latched onto this world of undeserved affluence and excess to earn profits for themselves with very little effort. It names the names and points fingers at the guilty, unlike similar books on the same subject.
The author himself steps into this world when he arrives in the beginning of 1998 in Huambo, Angola, charged with setting up a small business development project in this, the second largest city in the country situated in the central highlands.
The country is on the brink of civil war but a project planned three years previously by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is finally being implemented through an agreement with a South African company, RUTEC. This company, under the directorship of John Dommett has sold themselves as experts in small business development and UNDP has promised them a payment of $1.65 million to transfer this expertise to Huambo. The contract however, turns out to be very vague, amongst other things it fails to state exactly which services RUTEC are to provide. Furthermore the Angolan government claims that they had not authorised this project and does not want it there.
It soon turns out that RUTEC is a company that sells equipment to small businesses and not much else and this demand to sell this equipment is immediately transmitted to the project staff in Huambo. It also turns out that the equipment is not only largely irrelevant to the Angolan context but also prohibitively expensive and of very poor quality. John Dommett also looses no time to inform the UN system in Angola that RUTEC has no staff capable of travelling to Angola.
Nevertheless month after month large amounts of money is paid from UNDP into the RUTEC account. A full scale civil war had also broken out at the end of 1998 with its epicentre in the area surrounding Huambo. Under these circumstances project staff, with no support, technical assistance or even salaries struggle to make a difference, with some success, against overwhelming odds. Blissfully indifferent to the circumstances of the Angolan people that he had promised to assist John Dommett, provides no support either financially or technically; instead uses his UN contract to sell RUTEC to the South African Land Development Bank and the Mineworkers Development Agency at a grossly inflated price and promptly disappears with his share of the loot.
By the beginning of 2001 the author, faced with a project that had achieved some success but had received less than 15% of the funds allocated to it, with staff salaries six months in arrears and a $100 000.00 of unpaid obligations in Huambo, arrived at UNDP’s offices in the Angolan capital Luanda to find out what went wrong and why, and how this can be corrected.
Correspondence to RUTEC quickly establishes that this company has no idea on where and how they had spent $1.5 million received from UNDP over a two year period. The new director was for three months unaware that RUTEC had a project in Angola and was receiving money from this project. An audit is promised.
Instead of this promised audit the author is then drawn into a topsy-turvy world of lies, deceits and threats, a world where nothing is as it seems, where higher and higher level UN officials tell bigger and bigger lies, an organisation with a complete and utter disregard for a humanity that they are supposed to serve, a world of glossy reports, excessive salaries and fraud, corruption and incompetence on a fantastic scale. All of this is being perpetuated by development practitioners who are morally and practically accountable to absolutely nobody. No audit ever took place.
This happened at a time before corruption was allowed to be discussed within the UN, before the oil-for-food scandal and before more members of the UN started pressuring the body to start accounting for what it is doing.
This is no isolated incident.
As the Angolan civil war drags on through 2001, and the mortality rate skyrockets along with a dramatic plunge in living standards for almost all Angolans, another South African businessman, Paul Erskine, noted for shady dealings in China and Russia, arrived with a lot of fanfare and a television crew from CNN and Mnet’s Carte Blance in tow. Mr. Erskine claims to represent the “Angolan Refugee Charity” an organisation dedicated to assist the people of Kuito, another city on the highlands as badly affected by the war as Huambo. This charity is registered in South Africa and on his website Paul Erskine requests donations to supply 1500 humanitarian products to the “refugees” in Kuito. These include wine, beer and cigarettes. Ignoring for the moment the fact that there cannot be, by definition, any Angolan refugees inside Angola, in Kuito almost nothing is known about Paul Erskine except for a series of complex business arrangements that he has with the local governor, a person reputed to be one of the most corrupt men in the country. Under his Humanitarian assistance guise he asks for logistical support from the World Food Programme, he calls them the World Food Organisation on his website, to bring his 1 500 humanitarian products into the city. This provokes a lot of suspicion and questions being asked about this man.
Seamus Reynolds, a Carte Blanche Journalist, responded to the authors’ concerns as such:
“We have been in contact with the World Food Program in Kuito and they have also expressed their concern. The Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Assistance has also promised to send through some information about Mr Erskine, but as yet I have not received any correspondence.
We are very concerned that money and supplies donated by the South African public might not be reaching the intended destination, but we need solid proof if this is the case.
We are aware of Mr Erskine's previous dealings in China and Russia, and although we cannot judge the man by those businesses we do include them in our assessment. When we spoke to him originally he explained how he operated in countries where free trade was a problem, and this is obviously the case in Angola. However, the work he says he is doing now is not for gain but purely humanitarian. Now this is the question we are asking. Is Mr Erskine using the aid from South Africa to benefit his business?”
It probably did, but unfortunately for Mr. Erskine, his methods proved to be a bit too crude and after few months of trying to raise funds and profit from the spectacle of compassion, he leaves swiftly, along with the TV cameras and disappears from the scene.
But as long as corruption exists at its current levels in Africa, and as long as both donors and ordinary people, continue to look the other way, foreign aid will simply serve to keep Africans poor. Sub-Saharan Africa has received an estimated $140 billion in bilateral and multilateral aid from 1995-2004. Yet African countries consistently end up as the poorest countries in the world. So one may ask the (literally) billion-dollar question: Where does the money go?
Admittedly kleptocrats do take a large percentage of this money, but the worst transgressors in this regard had been removed from office by the end of the last century and still large amounts of money are unaccounted for.
Clearly the answer to this question must increasingly be searched for elsewhere.
Non-Governmental agencies, the UN, the large number of donors and to a lesser extend private business are generally perceived in a positive light.
There is an assumption that at the UN, in particular, staff are always bound to the high standards of their institution and always act in good faith and are consistently reliable and trustworthy.
Because of this assumption, rather than actual institutional accountability, moral authority is not questioned but assumed; and as such scandals should pose a greater threat to the humanitarian system than they would in a democracy, for example.
It is time to remove the veil of purity that has supported humanitarian institutions. The UN should not only set standards for its own conduct, it should also establish mechanisms to enforce adherence to these standards that goes beyond their tendency to simply say, “Trust us.”
Aspiring as they are to the highest values of mankind, the UN cannot, without oversight, expect its employees to be above corruption, abuse, stupidity, incompetence and ignorance.
The danger that exists is that current positive views, which are not fully supported by the reality, can quickly turn negative. There are some corruption researchers who are concerned that countries are typically seen as either as mostly clean or mostly dirty, with few countries falling within these extremes. For example a 2004 Gallup poll of 41 000 people in 47 countries found moderate concern over corruption in South Africa's courts, customs, business licensing, etc., yet people’s concerns regarding corruption were growing. The poll found that 51% of South African respondents expected corruption to grow worse. They were among the most pessimistic of all the people asked. It is perhaps not surprising considering that they live in what must be one of the most corrupt business environments around.
On 01 Apr 2004 Business Day published an article “South Africa Plans Law Against Corruption By Local Companies In Foreign States” which stated that “Government plans to enact legislation that will make it possible to prosecute South African companies accused of corruption in foreign countries.”
According to the article Public Enterprises Minister Jeff Radebe, “called for South African companies operating elsewhere in Africa to make sure they were ethically beyond reproach and to act in such a way that they would not be deemed the "new imperialists."”
He furthermore said that government was considering a special code of conduct for state-owned companies operating in other parts of Africa, and trusted “that most in the private sector would agree with our approach.” Does he in all honesty believe that the private sector would by themselves and left to themselves agree to this approach?
Organized business responded to him by saying that “it would welcome the cabinet's proposed initiative, (but) it called for avenues other than legislation to be explored.” If not legislation, then what are the alternatives? One can then only turn ones hopes to the International Community.
For the past decade at least we have heard how corruption and mismanagement at the UN has bruised its image. Time and again the world and especially the Third World are promised that “steps are being taken to correct the situation and refurbish the image of the UN.”
“Letters to Gabriella” clearly demonstrates how the United Nations in general, and its so-called principle agency, UNDP, in particular, perform in countries where they claim to be assisting local economies and people.
Time and again we find out that it is all whitewash; the UN remains as corrupt and mismanaged as ever; in fact, as this book amply demonstrates, “its standing in many countries has "never been lower".”
In 2003 Mark Malloch Brown, then the UNDP Administrator, claimed in a report that “Today, UNDP has come to the close of the most dramatic four-year internal transformation in our history. We are more capable than ever before of responding to the world’s development challenges because our organization is stronger, more focused and better connected.”
“Letters to Gabriella” is set against the background of this promise and shows clearly that on the ground that at best this “transformation” had not done much more than entrench old habits in an already corrupt and incapable UNDP. Survey after survey (except for UNDP surveys), demonstrate that confidence in UNDP in particular and the UN in general remain as low as ever. Recently Mr. Brown has been appointed UN Chief of Staff, specifically charged with overseeing UN reform. Could we now look forward to more empty words and more whitewashing?
Mr. Tharoor, Under-secretary General to the United Nations, states that no charge against the organisation goes unanswered. “Letters to Gabriella” clearly demonstrates how a contractor to UNDP spent six years trying to get answers from an organisation regarding their ineptness and corruption, without any success. These questions are unanswered in the book and remain so today; leaving in its wake but an account of a series of lies, threats and deceit that does nothing to instil any confidence in the UN system.
Mr. Tharoor also likes to state that a “blizzard of public information initiatives” is unleashed by the UN to counter attacks in the media.”
Would it not be more productive to unleash a blizzard of dismissals of the freeloaders, the charlatans, the corrupt and incompetent officials that form the bulk of UN staff and tarnish its image? Would not then UN reform be more productive and more believable?

Corruption thrives in secrecy. When corruption prevails, the resultant misallocation of resources hits not only the poor but also the pockets of taxpayers and shareholders worldwide. Even so by far the most damaging effects of corruption are felt by its victims in the developing world, ordinary people who lack the political skill or economic leverage to bring about change.

Amazon Review:
If you hate the UN, this book is for you, January 12, 2006
Reviewer:
Dr. W. Martin James (Arkadelphia, AR USA) -
If you believe, as I, that the United Nations is a bloated, corrupt, inept, inefficient, and arrogant organization then this book is for you. The author spent several years in Huambo, Angola working on a development project under the auspices of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). UNDP could not account for money spent, who it went to or for what purpose. Meanwhile, the author and his staff struggled without salaries, supplies, and guidance while still making a meaningful contribution. Plus, Huambo was in the middle of a civil war. I'd give the book 5 stars, but Kukkuk really delves into the contracts, booklets, and correspondence as he struggles to save his project. It can get to be too much, but then again, he suffered through the time period. The book has an excellent account about the Angolan civil war, but the main focus of the text is the author's unbelievable struggle with UNDP. For a program designed to help the less fortunate, UNDP in Angola, at least, does nothing but worry about glossy reports, avoiding responsibility, and waiting for pay day and the chance to go on holiday paid for by the UN. A stunning indictment of the arrogance and condescending attitude shown not only to the people they are suppose to serve, but the host government as well.

Below is the reaction that this article as originally posted at www.publishedauthors.org received from UNDP.