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.
Showing posts with label Corruption. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Corruption. Show all posts
Friday, 12 October 2007
Wednesday, 10 October 2007
Any Response Yet?
This comment posted at the end of Press Release (and the resulting tantrum by UNDP) remain as relevant now as when it was first posted. It is therefore moved here in the interest of requesting Stephen Kinloch if in the intervening months he has managed to decide on a possible response yet. (And I do not consider the inability of UNDP to provide straightforward answers to simple questions as an excuse for ongoing silence.)
Assunto: Defamatory use of online service:
http://www.publishedauthors.net/leonkukkuk/events.html
Remetente: stephen.kinloch-pichat@undp.org
Data: Fri, 24 Novembro 2006 00:03
Para: leonkukkuk@publishedauthors.net
Dear Mr. Kukkuk,
It has just come to my attention that my name, together with that of several colleagues who either work or have worked for the United Nations (UN) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Angola or elsewhere, is mentioned in hidden (but searchable and
readable) text, together with defamatory terms such as 'fraud'
or 'corruption' in your webpage:
http://www.publishedauthors.net/leonkukkuk/events.html
As you are probably aware, the use of a computer or online service to defame a person carries with it severe potential liability, including for any related claims, proceedings, damages, injuries, liabilities, losses, costs, and expenses.
Therefore, I would like to kindly request you to immediately and completely delete all personal reference, whether hidden or visible, to my name and that of other colleagues from the above mentioned website, and any other website that you may have published.
I have already alerted PublishedAuthors.Net. In order to avoid further measures, I would appreciate your acknowledging receipt of this email and confirming that you have made taken appropriate corrective action.
Yours sincerely,
Stephen Kinloch
Advisor, Strategic Planning
Office of the Resident Coordinator
United Nations - Port-au-Prince
Dear Mr. Kinloch,
In the preamble to my book “Letters to Gabriella Angola’s Last War for Peace: What the UN did and Why” I say:
“I strive at all times to give a fair and honest account of what might have occurred or of what was said. There are those who gave me information in the strictest confidence, who may now be surprised to find it repeated here. I do not apologise for this. Those guarantees of confidentiality were given in exchange for certain promises, these not having been fulfilled, the confidentiality then no longer holds. There may be still be others who might be aggrieved to find they have been quoted and identified; yet again I am reluctant for apologising for doing so, for those most likely to be the loudest in their protestations draw their salaries from public money and donations and they should not expect, much less demand, to be working surrounded by a cloak of secrecy and anonymity.”
You, Mr. Kinloch, as well as your colleagues, are all public servants, drawing your salaries from public money and are thus subject to public scrutiny, being named and identified publicly at the discretion of any member of the public, if they believe that to be in the public interest.
It is not as if I had not been anticipating a tantrum. What I had not anticipated was how long it would take for the first tantrum to arrive.
I am also surprised as to how people, who have demonstrated a total inability to arrange something as basic as an audit, show such alarming enthusiasm to threaten me with “further measures,” surely a substantially more expensive and complex thing to arrange. You are not the first UNDP staff member to threaten me with such, and it may well be that you may not be the last, and my response now remains the same as it has always been: There is nothing that would please me more.
There may possibly be a case to be made for defamation. There is definitely a case for severe potential liability, including for any related claims, proceedings, damages, injuries, liabilities, losses, costs, and expenses. It neither instance are these cases to be made by any UNDP staff member.
Please bear with me through this argument. That way we can establish exactly where we stand.
My book is about fraud. It is principally, but not exclusively, concerned with a scam planned, financed and executed by UNDP, under the guise of a project in Huambo, Angola, of which I was in charge. The book goes into huge detail regarding the anatomy of this scam; it was read by several legal specialists before publication and has since publication attracted a fair amount of meaningful and constructive feedback.
There is no doubt whatsoever that a scam was perpetuated and that UNDP was responsible for this scam. The only measurable outcome of this project, ostensibly designed to assist poor and vulnerable people in Huambo, Angola was that at the end of it, a white man, called John Dommett, from Johannesburg, South Africa, was a millionaire.
This outcome did not happen by accident. It was designed to have this outcome. UNDP staff did not design it like this because they were unable to distinguish between a white man and poor and vulnerable Africans or because they considered John Dommett to be especially needy and somehow entitled to receive UN funds. They did not even do it for altruistic reasons.
If there is anybody that disagrees with this analysis, I urge them to read the book, and to then present me with a counter argument based on the relevant documents.
During the course of my investigations into this scam, conducted over a period of more than six years, and based on a sometimes overwhelming volume of documents, interviews and in-depth research I managed to identify, and name in the book, a number of UN officials, all of whom have left, and still leaves, unanswered questions and concerns in relation to this scam in particular, and the prevalence of corruption and fraud within UNDP in general.
These individuals are: Mark Malloch Brown, James Lee, Dimitri Samaras, Bisrat Aklilu, Michele Falavigna, Erick de Mul, Michel Balima, Stanislaus Nkwain, Stephen Kinloch, Francisco de Almeida.
All of these individuals are involved in one or more aspects of this scam: Oversight (complete lack thereof), planning, executing, covering up, assisting to cover up, ignoring.
Some were involved over a period of many years, others for only a few hours. Some acted on their own initiative, others simply followed instructions. Some play a central role, others acted only on the periphery. Some made deliberate decisions, others did so inadvertently. Some embraced the scam with enthusiasm, others were indifferent, yet others were involved only very reluctantly.
What each and every one of the people named have in common is that the contribution of each and every one, no matter how small, is significant and instrumental in ensuring the perpetuation of this scam over many years and the eventual attempt to cover it up.
The consensus of UNDP as a corrupt, fraudulent, wasteful and inept institution is pretty near universal and I am not now going to enter into that debate. This state of affairs at UNDP is not the result of angels who came fluttering out of the sky and do funny things, neither is it the result of a mysterious force acting upon UNDP. It is also not the mysterious “them” that UNDP staff refers to when reflecting on their organisation. It is the direct, causal result of the staff at UNDP and the decisions that they make. Those who turn a blind eye or ignore wrongdoing around them help foster the atmosphere of corruption and impunity at UNDP. Staff indulge not only in fraud but also in wasteful, fantasy projects (also a form of fraud) knowing that they can rely on managers to cover up for them and to promote them out of harms way when required. Managers cover up fraud and waste knowing that there is no oversight whatsoever within the organisation, no sense of holding responsible staff accountable and that senior management will protect them and the organisation with a barrage of misinformation and spin to the media, drowning out all dissenting voices.
Every single staff member at UNDP is complicit in this; even the honest ones who try and survive within the organisation as best they can by remaining largely invisible. Knowing about wrongdoing and doing nothing about it is a crime. Planning and financing a scam and leaving it to others to execute, sometimes inadvertently, is a crime. Wasting public money is a crime. Using public money for private gain is a crime. That is the law. Staff at UNDP can argue otherwise as much as they like. It still remains the law.
Naming and shaming is a recognized tool for ensuring compliance with the law and to foster a sense of accountability and transparency. It is a tool that the UN itself uses. It is a particularly useful and appropriate tool within the context of the United Nations, which is functionally immune to prosecution, where many staff members hide behind immunities that they have not earned and do not deserve, where corruption and fraud is so endemic that one frequently encounter UN public servants that firmly believe that it is their right to steal.
For four years I raised my concerns with UNDP in a measured and reasonable manner. I was met at first with indifference and resistance, then for a short time with a half-hearted and pretty hopeless attempt to address my concerns, followed rapidly by threats, intimidation, accusation and an outright refusal to communicate with me. (That is the reason why this response to Stephen Kinloch is done publicly and not directly to him.)
In the interest of fairness I had contemplated initially providing a short summary of the role of Stephen Kinloch in the events as recounted in my book by way of justifying why I tag his name (amongst others) to much of what I write in promoting that book. He is a public servant after all, as well as somebody who expresses various opinions, publishes and had made searchable and readable those opinions on the internet. It is therefore reasonable for me to believe that there may be third parties interested in acquiring more information on him and what he does in the public domain. These are all potential buyers of the book in which he is mentioned. No value judgement is implied or intended when doing this. The fact that a name may appear on a page that also contains the words “fraud” and “corruption” by itself is meaningless. Simultaneity does not prove a relationship; much less the nature of the relationship. It may be of concern to somebody with something to hide. I am always quite proud to find my name on pages that also contain the words “fraud” and “corruption.” Yet any relationship can only be established through language, grammar and deductive logic.
However, extracting his case, spread over several chapters, from a complex narrative and presenting it coherently as well as concisely appears to me a daunting task.
What I will do instead is provide a short summary of the main theme in my book to provide some context, followed then simply by all the correspondence between Stephen Kinloch and myself. It should provide at least some explanation. This may be unsatisfactory to many, including perhaps Stephen Kinloch himself. All I can do in my defence is to urge you to read the book.
By way of summary I will quote from “Angola: Empire of the Humanitarians” an excellent paper by Sreeram Chaulia:
“Kukkuk’s remarkable testimony of corruption, deceit and lies in the UNDP bears elaboration. RUTEC, a South African company with dubious links to diamond dealers, started a ‘micro enterprise development project’ in Huambo in 1998 with $1.5 million of funding from UNDP and UNOPS (UN Office for Project Services). The author, who was selected as the Project Director, found to his shock that only a pitifully small amount of money actually reached him on the ground in Huambo. “This contract seemed to neatly sidestep the usually strict procurement rules in place within the UN system.” RUTEC was chosen as sub-contractor by UNDP although this company was spurious, lacking local roots and planning for what kinds of training would benefit the war-affected economy. The author’s higher-ups in RUTEC instructed him, “We do not have to tell anybody what we are doing in Huambo and what we are spending on this project.” (p.217). Progress reports submitted to UNOPS contained no financial statements. There was no competitive bidding or justification shown by UNDP for choosing RUTEC as the sub-contractor. Under the CRP, projects had to be reviewed and authorised by a local appraisal committee. RUTEC never received one. UNDP “got involved, planned and gave money to a project that none of its staff understood or made an effort to learn to understand.” RUTEC was “yet another typical UNDP mess, a fiasco that usually accompanies UNDP projects.” For RUTEC to get vehicle documents, imported equipment or even work visas, well-paid UNDP staff requested “missing documents” (euphemism for $100 bills). RUTEC in Johannesburg was, on its part, harnessing this “sweetheart deal with UNOPS”, further increasing its profits by over-invoicing and manipulating equipment transfers to Angola.”
“Kukkuk recalls the irony of UNDP coining catchy slogans like ‘Project Management, Good Governance and Anti-Corruption’ before putting its own house in order. It employed bureaucratic blockades to cover up scandals like RUTEC and provided excuses for inaction.”
“For the Huambo project’s local employees who were cheated of their salaries by UNDP, “those who lose are always us, due to the fact that it is foreigners that drive the train of deceit.” They repeatedly requested UNDP to “be more human”. When it was to no avail, they accused UNDP of being “the main violator of human rights whilst presenting yourself as the protector of these same rights.””
Here is our correspondence:
Leon Kukkuk on 01 September 2001, soon after the arrival of Stephen Kinloch in Angola as a Deputy Resident Representative UNDP to arrange a meeting:
Please let me know when it would be possible for us to meet.
We used to have a project in Huambo that was unfortunately severely mismanaged and now the subject of lots of to-ing and fro-ing tracing and hopefully recovering funds that had been paid but was not spent on the project. In spite of this the project achieved some very positive results.
All the problems are putting the possibility of raising additional funds under severe strain and need to be solved. I am under lots of pressure from the local authorities to provide some answers and things have now dragged on for several years since I had initially raised the issues with UNDP.
On the same day from Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk:
As early as possible. As you know, the beginning of the week is going to be quite busy. What about Wednesday at 15:00 in my office?
Leon Kukkuk to Stephen Kinloch 05 September 2001:
Thank you very much for taking time to talk to me. As always I am hoping for a positive outcome.
Attached, please find two documents that provide a summery of the project that should be in the file. A brief perusal indicated that they were perhaps not there any longer.
Also find a copy of my CV.
A talk with Allan Cain from Development Workshop would perhaps be more useful as follow up - free from the intricacies of UNDP and distortion through personal involvement.
On the same day from Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk:
Thanks, Leon, I really appreciate your taking the time to come and see me. Sorry, really, for the difficulties you have been going through. I will seize any opportunity to meet with Allan Cain, and keep you posted. Have a very good evening. Stephen
On 21 September 2001 from Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk:
Leon,
To keep you posted of developments.
This office is now following-up with UNOPS in New York.
The idea is to obtain a thorough evaluation/audit of the whole project.
There will be no, repeat: no, new activities, at least until such an audit has taken place.
Meanwhile, we are also looking seriously into ways to compensate former staff for unpaid salaries.
This is not meant to raise any expectations, or make promises, but to assess what can be done.
We all have to act responsibly on all sides, as partners who can respect each other.
I therefore look forward to your cooperation, and to staying in touch with you.
I also trust your judgement on relaying that message to those concerned.
Should you wish to contact me, please do not hesitate.
Have a very good week-end, and take care.
On the same day Leon Kukkuk to Stephen Kinloch:
Respect is something earned, not given.
There will be no, repeat no orders given to me regarding new activities.
On 23 September 2001 Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk wrote back:
Leon,
Perhaps my message was not clear enough:
I meant: no activities from UNDP side, of course.
As for respect. . . may we, then, all have to earn it?
I look forward to it, from both sides.
Thanks and regards.
(Note: The promised audit never took place.)
On 09 October 2001 Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk:
As you know, we are actively working on finding a solution for the settlement of pending salaries for staff of the Huambo Training Centre (ANG/96/B01 BL2101) for the months the staff worked without salary after the termination of the project.
Attached is the list of pending salaries we have received from you.
As the documents I have at my disposal are not always consistent, I should be grateful if you could confirm that the period covered is end of July 2000 to end of January 2000 or, if not, if you could provide me with the specific dates for which salary is claimed for each person.
I also note that you are not included in the list of staff whose salary is pending, although I understand you have also been working during the period concerned. Could you clarify this as well?
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
On 18 October 2001 from Leon Kukkuk to Stephen Kinloch:
Attached is a summary of all amounts outstanding to a total of $95 207.78 (before end October 2001).
Our account details are as follows:
. . .
We are looking forward to a prompt solution to this issue.
Although we won’t find any compensation for the mental anguish, stress and waste of our lives caused by this mess, a final resolution would also depend on the following three issues:
1. Some very clear answers need to be given regarding who planned this project, why they planned it, who protected it for more than three years and what steps are being taken to prevent them planning similar things in the future.
2. It has come to my attention that there is a perception amongst certain people that I am the one being investigated for misappropriating funds. I strongly suspect that Jurgen Spangenberg, from the UNDP Insecurity Unit, is responsible for this perception. Whatever the case may be, this is as serious as it is unacceptable. Do you have any suggestions how this misunderstanding can be cleared up? I will highly appreciate it.
I am looking forward to better relations in the future (naturally with a UNDP that is diametrically different from what is now)
Thank you very much and hoping to hear from you soon.
On 21 October 2001 from Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk:
Thank you very much for the information.
However, in the table, there are elements that we have not discussed, while the precise information earlier requested is not present.
As per my previous email (below), I should be most grateful if you could confirm for each person concerned the precise amounts of unpaid salaries and corresponding dates for the period end of July 2000 to end of January 2000, that is after the termination of the project.
Please note that I will be away until 28 of October as of today.
My colleague, Francisco de Almeida, will be following-up in my absence.
On 25 October 2001 from Leon Kukkuk to Francisco de Almeida:
Francisco, The list contains the salaries of the national staff for the months of July 2000 to February 2001 inclusive, minus amounts paid to them from two sources - either from my own funds or from the sale of equipment. Although the centre closed at the end of January 2001 this was a decision only taken on 22 January 2001 after we had not received any responses to the e-mails (14 January 2001) sent to Teresa Felix and Stan Nkwain and a letter (14 January 2001) to the Co-ordinator of the UN system. We were therefore obliged to offer the staff a months notice and severance pay. Carlos Alberto Gomes is offered an amount of -- per month for looking after the equipment and vehicles from March 2001 to August 2001 (--), under very difficult and at times threatening circumstances.
On the same day from Francisco de Almeida to Leon Kukkuk:
The message below was certainly sent to me by mistake. I am not handling this issue that, I must confess, is getting more and more confused. Stephen will be back early next week. Please liase with him to find out the status of the payment of salaries amounting to $33,340 to the local staff that our Office exceptionally accepted to advance while working out the final solution with RUTEC and UNOPS.
Regards, Francisco
On 01 November 2001 from Leon Kukkuk to Stephen Kinloch:
I appreciate your efforts.
Please provide me with some sort of timescale:
1. for payment of amount of local salaries.
2. Of audit.
Remember, as more time passes more darkness will be shed on this subject, and more expenses accumulate. The time that I am spending without an income or freedom to secure a reliable means of income is also becoming unacceptably long and need to be taken into consideration.
On the same day from Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk:
Thank you very much for the data on unpaid amounts related to the project, as requested. I truly appreciate your effort to provide a comprehensive picture of the situation, which does give an idea of the problem.
Unfortunately, it also appears more and more that given its complexity, the lack of consistency sometimes between various figures, and the number of actors involved, only a thorough audit could at this stage help determining accurately responsibilities, duties and amounts involved, to settle the issue. We are following up with UNOPS, from whom a response has not yet been received.
Meanwhile, pending such clarification, UNDP has expressed its willingness, and is determined, to settle from its own resources the most immediate, urgent, and clear-cut aspect of the problem, which is the payment of local staff for the period they have been working while not under contract.
Given the above, steps are now been made by this office to settle payment of salaries to local staff for the period of July 2000 and February 2001, on the basis of the attached table received from the staff, as initially envisaged.
This obviously does not meet all expectations and does not sort out or solve all problems, but at least allows us to move forward.
I truly hope it will nevertheless be viewed as a concrete step in the right direction, and will keep you posted of developments in due course.
On 20 November 2001 from Leon Kukkuk to Stephen Kinloch:
Dear Stephen,
I am not getting any response regarding the sort of timetable for payment of local salaries or audit, but have decided to spend the rest of the year in Huambo.
Please keep me up to date with what is happening. The tel. system in Huambo appears to continue to be less than reliable but I can be contacted through WFP radioroom or OCHA as alternatives should it be necessary.
I would very much appreciate your assistance in this regard.
Have a good holiday season + Christmas, etc.
On 26 November 2002 from Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk:
Thanks for your message. And apologies for my delay in responding to you.
Salaries for local staff (based on table initially submitted by them) have been approved and are being processed for payment. The issue of a formal audit is still being followed up with UNOPS New York.
Unfortunately, for reasons beyond my control, I am no longer authorized to be in touch with you formally on behalf of UNDP, so please do not consider this message as official communication, but as a personal and informal message.
Best wishes to you too.
On 24 January 2002 the last meaningful correspondence with UNDP from Leon Kukkuk to Francisco de Almeida:
We are in receipt of your letter of 22 January 2002 and it has been distributed to some of the staff. We are looking forward to have the considerable ill feeling and confusion related to this project cleared once and for all.
. . .
In addition I would like to request that you stay directly in contact with me. Working through intermediaries and Carlos Gomes, who is working in Kaála, creates a lot of extra work and confusion. If it is the case that UNDP no longer wants to talk to me or that I am persona non grata or responsible for the current problems, the correct procedure would be to motivate this decision by way of the available documentation. Until such a time, I have been responsible for the project and am now responsible to find a solution to its problems. This is a decision taken amongst ourselves and will remain the case until we decide otherwise.
As you may be well aware, I have tried my utmost to find a solution in an agreeable and open manner through maintaining good relations with UNDP in the face of threats, insults, disrespect and gross incompetence on their part. In over three years we have made no progress or received any meaningful responses. If UNDP cannot respond in a like manner, one becomes inclined to believe that perhaps they have something to hide. This is unsuitable behaviour for a public agency that depends for its survival on contributions of our money. I sincerely hope the present circumstances will not continue indefinitely.
It has continued indefinitely.
Over the intervening years my understanding of corruption also increased dramatically. Corrupt practices are invariably very complex, deliberately so, confusion is a key element in how they function and even if they can be unravelled, a wealth of technical jargon makes it difficult to recount the process in a manner that can be readily understood. I am now more aware of how scams are hidden behind a veneer of legitimacy, with legally enforceable contracts, carefully designed to fit into the cracks between different agencies, institutions and governments, even the cracks between national and international law. I now know how accountability is spread so thinly as to be virtually meaningless, which incidentally, combined with complex and overlapping bureaucratic systems, also provides the required opacity for these scams to function. Deniability, or potential deniability, remains the primary motivation informing key decisions at all levels. I now know how the strange audit procedures within the UN system encourage rather than prevent corruption. In looking forward to an audit at UNDP, which never happened, I did not then realise that I was looking forward to process that is used to cover up crimes, not to expose them.
For a long time I naively believed that all I needed to do was to make UNDP aware of how much harm their behaviour was causing and then they would stop. It was too late for me by the time I understood the need for scapegoats in scams and that in this project I was to be that scapegoat. There was no concern about what would happen to the local staff, they were not even considered as human beings. As I embarked in 2002 on a series of interviews explaining the circumstances of this UNDP scam, I immediately found myself under attack by UNDP as Francisco de Almeida reacted thus (and I quote from one of his own documents):
“In a live interview I informed Mr. Mario Vaz from Radio Ecclésia and the listeners of the 12 o’clock news journal that the allegations made by Mr Leon Kukkuk did not correspond to the truth. I clarified the following:
If there was misappropriation of funds, Mr Leon Kukkuk in his capacity of former RUTEC Programme Manager would be the best person to provide any clarification on this manner;”
I am indeed the best person to provide this clarification and have since complied with this request in writing my book, a book that incidentally is the only thing that stands today between myself and me being on the receiving end of accusations and suspicion of corruption. To date nobody from the United Nations System or from UNDP has responded to the conclusions drawn in that book. There may be a case to be made for defamation. It is not a case that can be made easily, by one individual pitted against a corrupt and powerful organisation.
The last official reaction from UNDP comes in the form of a statement issued on 13 January 2002, by Erick de Mul, at the time the UNDP Resident Representative in Angola. Acknowledging the difficulties that we had suffered over so many years and guaranteeing that “our office has pledged to do everything since the end of 2000 to find a solution to this difficult situation,” he then proceeds to deny any wrongdoing, stating instead:
“However, as you know UNDP did not have any direct responsibility in the execution and implementation of the (project) in the province of Huambo. The responsibility of UNDP is limited to the formulation and financing of the project.”
With this statement whatever little respect I may ever have had for Erick de Mul (and it was never very much) disappeared along with the last vestiges of whatever confidence I may have had in UNDP or any of its staff. In searching for any precedence to this sort of argument, I almost immediately stumbled on the names of what is generally considered the vilest criminals of the twentieth century, who tried to use a similar argument and did not get away with it.
There is no reason why UNDP should get away with it.
Stephen Kinloch, you may be dismayed to find that you are being identified and named. It is nothing personal. Neither you nor any of your colleagues mean anything to me as individuals. It is simply a matter of your names having surfaced in an issue with which I am concerned. I am fully entitled to use those names in this context and to use them again if they crop up again in any other context. I make no apologies for that. Everybody that I have named still work for the United Nations, some have even been promoted, most are no longer in Angola. I was the one left behind, trying to cope, alone, with the shambles created by UNDP.
Nevertheless, I am not even picking only on UNDP. The Danish Refugee Council (examples here and here), Medicines sans Frontières, Medicines du Monde and DAPP are all currently under my spotlight.
UNDP may already be quite good at this but they still have a lot to learn from the Danish Refugee Council on how to use fear, insult and intimidation as a management tool. UNDP might comfortably stumble along in its own little bubble; it is yet to achieve the same obliviousness to its surroundings as do MSF. UNDP might be endemically corrupt, its scams however pale into small-scale, amateurish insignificance compared to those of DAPP, who send out criminal gangs to dominate entire countries.
I am concerned with the role of the entire International Community, whose members enter into my home, Africa, only long enough to make a mess, destroying not only my life but the lives of everybody around me, and then disappear.
This makes us go hungry, it makes us fight wars with one another, and it makes us indulge in our own corruption. We suffer from AIDS, TB and Malaria and our children die in vast numbers. There is definitely a case for severe potential liability, including for any related claims, proceedings, damages, injuries, liabilities, losses, costs, and expenses.
Are you prepared to make that case?
Assunto: Defamatory use of online service:
http://www.publishedauthors.net/leonkukkuk/events.html
Remetente: stephen.kinloch-pichat@undp.org
Data: Fri, 24 Novembro 2006 00:03
Para: leonkukkuk@publishedauthors.net
Dear Mr. Kukkuk,
It has just come to my attention that my name, together with that of several colleagues who either work or have worked for the United Nations (UN) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Angola or elsewhere, is mentioned in hidden (but searchable and
readable) text, together with defamatory terms such as 'fraud'
or 'corruption' in your webpage:
http://www.publishedauthors.net/leonkukkuk/events.html
As you are probably aware, the use of a computer or online service to defame a person carries with it severe potential liability, including for any related claims, proceedings, damages, injuries, liabilities, losses, costs, and expenses.
Therefore, I would like to kindly request you to immediately and completely delete all personal reference, whether hidden or visible, to my name and that of other colleagues from the above mentioned website, and any other website that you may have published.
I have already alerted PublishedAuthors.Net. In order to avoid further measures, I would appreciate your acknowledging receipt of this email and confirming that you have made taken appropriate corrective action.
Yours sincerely,
Stephen Kinloch
Advisor, Strategic Planning
Office of the Resident Coordinator
United Nations - Port-au-Prince
Dear Mr. Kinloch,
In the preamble to my book “Letters to Gabriella Angola’s Last War for Peace: What the UN did and Why” I say:
“I strive at all times to give a fair and honest account of what might have occurred or of what was said. There are those who gave me information in the strictest confidence, who may now be surprised to find it repeated here. I do not apologise for this. Those guarantees of confidentiality were given in exchange for certain promises, these not having been fulfilled, the confidentiality then no longer holds. There may be still be others who might be aggrieved to find they have been quoted and identified; yet again I am reluctant for apologising for doing so, for those most likely to be the loudest in their protestations draw their salaries from public money and donations and they should not expect, much less demand, to be working surrounded by a cloak of secrecy and anonymity.”
You, Mr. Kinloch, as well as your colleagues, are all public servants, drawing your salaries from public money and are thus subject to public scrutiny, being named and identified publicly at the discretion of any member of the public, if they believe that to be in the public interest.
It is not as if I had not been anticipating a tantrum. What I had not anticipated was how long it would take for the first tantrum to arrive.
I am also surprised as to how people, who have demonstrated a total inability to arrange something as basic as an audit, show such alarming enthusiasm to threaten me with “further measures,” surely a substantially more expensive and complex thing to arrange. You are not the first UNDP staff member to threaten me with such, and it may well be that you may not be the last, and my response now remains the same as it has always been: There is nothing that would please me more.
There may possibly be a case to be made for defamation. There is definitely a case for severe potential liability, including for any related claims, proceedings, damages, injuries, liabilities, losses, costs, and expenses. It neither instance are these cases to be made by any UNDP staff member.
Please bear with me through this argument. That way we can establish exactly where we stand.
My book is about fraud. It is principally, but not exclusively, concerned with a scam planned, financed and executed by UNDP, under the guise of a project in Huambo, Angola, of which I was in charge. The book goes into huge detail regarding the anatomy of this scam; it was read by several legal specialists before publication and has since publication attracted a fair amount of meaningful and constructive feedback.
There is no doubt whatsoever that a scam was perpetuated and that UNDP was responsible for this scam. The only measurable outcome of this project, ostensibly designed to assist poor and vulnerable people in Huambo, Angola was that at the end of it, a white man, called John Dommett, from Johannesburg, South Africa, was a millionaire.
This outcome did not happen by accident. It was designed to have this outcome. UNDP staff did not design it like this because they were unable to distinguish between a white man and poor and vulnerable Africans or because they considered John Dommett to be especially needy and somehow entitled to receive UN funds. They did not even do it for altruistic reasons.
If there is anybody that disagrees with this analysis, I urge them to read the book, and to then present me with a counter argument based on the relevant documents.
During the course of my investigations into this scam, conducted over a period of more than six years, and based on a sometimes overwhelming volume of documents, interviews and in-depth research I managed to identify, and name in the book, a number of UN officials, all of whom have left, and still leaves, unanswered questions and concerns in relation to this scam in particular, and the prevalence of corruption and fraud within UNDP in general.
These individuals are: Mark Malloch Brown, James Lee, Dimitri Samaras, Bisrat Aklilu, Michele Falavigna, Erick de Mul, Michel Balima, Stanislaus Nkwain, Stephen Kinloch, Francisco de Almeida.
All of these individuals are involved in one or more aspects of this scam: Oversight (complete lack thereof), planning, executing, covering up, assisting to cover up, ignoring.
Some were involved over a period of many years, others for only a few hours. Some acted on their own initiative, others simply followed instructions. Some play a central role, others acted only on the periphery. Some made deliberate decisions, others did so inadvertently. Some embraced the scam with enthusiasm, others were indifferent, yet others were involved only very reluctantly.
What each and every one of the people named have in common is that the contribution of each and every one, no matter how small, is significant and instrumental in ensuring the perpetuation of this scam over many years and the eventual attempt to cover it up.
The consensus of UNDP as a corrupt, fraudulent, wasteful and inept institution is pretty near universal and I am not now going to enter into that debate. This state of affairs at UNDP is not the result of angels who came fluttering out of the sky and do funny things, neither is it the result of a mysterious force acting upon UNDP. It is also not the mysterious “them” that UNDP staff refers to when reflecting on their organisation. It is the direct, causal result of the staff at UNDP and the decisions that they make. Those who turn a blind eye or ignore wrongdoing around them help foster the atmosphere of corruption and impunity at UNDP. Staff indulge not only in fraud but also in wasteful, fantasy projects (also a form of fraud) knowing that they can rely on managers to cover up for them and to promote them out of harms way when required. Managers cover up fraud and waste knowing that there is no oversight whatsoever within the organisation, no sense of holding responsible staff accountable and that senior management will protect them and the organisation with a barrage of misinformation and spin to the media, drowning out all dissenting voices.
Every single staff member at UNDP is complicit in this; even the honest ones who try and survive within the organisation as best they can by remaining largely invisible. Knowing about wrongdoing and doing nothing about it is a crime. Planning and financing a scam and leaving it to others to execute, sometimes inadvertently, is a crime. Wasting public money is a crime. Using public money for private gain is a crime. That is the law. Staff at UNDP can argue otherwise as much as they like. It still remains the law.
Naming and shaming is a recognized tool for ensuring compliance with the law and to foster a sense of accountability and transparency. It is a tool that the UN itself uses. It is a particularly useful and appropriate tool within the context of the United Nations, which is functionally immune to prosecution, where many staff members hide behind immunities that they have not earned and do not deserve, where corruption and fraud is so endemic that one frequently encounter UN public servants that firmly believe that it is their right to steal.
For four years I raised my concerns with UNDP in a measured and reasonable manner. I was met at first with indifference and resistance, then for a short time with a half-hearted and pretty hopeless attempt to address my concerns, followed rapidly by threats, intimidation, accusation and an outright refusal to communicate with me. (That is the reason why this response to Stephen Kinloch is done publicly and not directly to him.)
In the interest of fairness I had contemplated initially providing a short summary of the role of Stephen Kinloch in the events as recounted in my book by way of justifying why I tag his name (amongst others) to much of what I write in promoting that book. He is a public servant after all, as well as somebody who expresses various opinions, publishes and had made searchable and readable those opinions on the internet. It is therefore reasonable for me to believe that there may be third parties interested in acquiring more information on him and what he does in the public domain. These are all potential buyers of the book in which he is mentioned. No value judgement is implied or intended when doing this. The fact that a name may appear on a page that also contains the words “fraud” and “corruption” by itself is meaningless. Simultaneity does not prove a relationship; much less the nature of the relationship. It may be of concern to somebody with something to hide. I am always quite proud to find my name on pages that also contain the words “fraud” and “corruption.” Yet any relationship can only be established through language, grammar and deductive logic.
However, extracting his case, spread over several chapters, from a complex narrative and presenting it coherently as well as concisely appears to me a daunting task.
What I will do instead is provide a short summary of the main theme in my book to provide some context, followed then simply by all the correspondence between Stephen Kinloch and myself. It should provide at least some explanation. This may be unsatisfactory to many, including perhaps Stephen Kinloch himself. All I can do in my defence is to urge you to read the book.
By way of summary I will quote from “Angola: Empire of the Humanitarians” an excellent paper by Sreeram Chaulia:
“Kukkuk’s remarkable testimony of corruption, deceit and lies in the UNDP bears elaboration. RUTEC, a South African company with dubious links to diamond dealers, started a ‘micro enterprise development project’ in Huambo in 1998 with $1.5 million of funding from UNDP and UNOPS (UN Office for Project Services). The author, who was selected as the Project Director, found to his shock that only a pitifully small amount of money actually reached him on the ground in Huambo. “This contract seemed to neatly sidestep the usually strict procurement rules in place within the UN system.” RUTEC was chosen as sub-contractor by UNDP although this company was spurious, lacking local roots and planning for what kinds of training would benefit the war-affected economy. The author’s higher-ups in RUTEC instructed him, “We do not have to tell anybody what we are doing in Huambo and what we are spending on this project.” (p.217). Progress reports submitted to UNOPS contained no financial statements. There was no competitive bidding or justification shown by UNDP for choosing RUTEC as the sub-contractor. Under the CRP, projects had to be reviewed and authorised by a local appraisal committee. RUTEC never received one. UNDP “got involved, planned and gave money to a project that none of its staff understood or made an effort to learn to understand.” RUTEC was “yet another typical UNDP mess, a fiasco that usually accompanies UNDP projects.” For RUTEC to get vehicle documents, imported equipment or even work visas, well-paid UNDP staff requested “missing documents” (euphemism for $100 bills). RUTEC in Johannesburg was, on its part, harnessing this “sweetheart deal with UNOPS”, further increasing its profits by over-invoicing and manipulating equipment transfers to Angola.”
“Kukkuk recalls the irony of UNDP coining catchy slogans like ‘Project Management, Good Governance and Anti-Corruption’ before putting its own house in order. It employed bureaucratic blockades to cover up scandals like RUTEC and provided excuses for inaction.”
“For the Huambo project’s local employees who were cheated of their salaries by UNDP, “those who lose are always us, due to the fact that it is foreigners that drive the train of deceit.” They repeatedly requested UNDP to “be more human”. When it was to no avail, they accused UNDP of being “the main violator of human rights whilst presenting yourself as the protector of these same rights.””
Here is our correspondence:
Leon Kukkuk on 01 September 2001, soon after the arrival of Stephen Kinloch in Angola as a Deputy Resident Representative UNDP to arrange a meeting:
Please let me know when it would be possible for us to meet.
We used to have a project in Huambo that was unfortunately severely mismanaged and now the subject of lots of to-ing and fro-ing tracing and hopefully recovering funds that had been paid but was not spent on the project. In spite of this the project achieved some very positive results.
All the problems are putting the possibility of raising additional funds under severe strain and need to be solved. I am under lots of pressure from the local authorities to provide some answers and things have now dragged on for several years since I had initially raised the issues with UNDP.
On the same day from Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk:
As early as possible. As you know, the beginning of the week is going to be quite busy. What about Wednesday at 15:00 in my office?
Leon Kukkuk to Stephen Kinloch 05 September 2001:
Thank you very much for taking time to talk to me. As always I am hoping for a positive outcome.
Attached, please find two documents that provide a summery of the project that should be in the file. A brief perusal indicated that they were perhaps not there any longer.
Also find a copy of my CV.
A talk with Allan Cain from Development Workshop would perhaps be more useful as follow up - free from the intricacies of UNDP and distortion through personal involvement.
On the same day from Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk:
Thanks, Leon, I really appreciate your taking the time to come and see me. Sorry, really, for the difficulties you have been going through. I will seize any opportunity to meet with Allan Cain, and keep you posted. Have a very good evening. Stephen
On 21 September 2001 from Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk:
Leon,
To keep you posted of developments.
This office is now following-up with UNOPS in New York.
The idea is to obtain a thorough evaluation/audit of the whole project.
There will be no, repeat: no, new activities, at least until such an audit has taken place.
Meanwhile, we are also looking seriously into ways to compensate former staff for unpaid salaries.
This is not meant to raise any expectations, or make promises, but to assess what can be done.
We all have to act responsibly on all sides, as partners who can respect each other.
I therefore look forward to your cooperation, and to staying in touch with you.
I also trust your judgement on relaying that message to those concerned.
Should you wish to contact me, please do not hesitate.
Have a very good week-end, and take care.
On the same day Leon Kukkuk to Stephen Kinloch:
Respect is something earned, not given.
There will be no, repeat no orders given to me regarding new activities.
On 23 September 2001 Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk wrote back:
Leon,
Perhaps my message was not clear enough:
I meant: no activities from UNDP side, of course.
As for respect. . . may we, then, all have to earn it?
I look forward to it, from both sides.
Thanks and regards.
(Note: The promised audit never took place.)
On 09 October 2001 Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk:
As you know, we are actively working on finding a solution for the settlement of pending salaries for staff of the Huambo Training Centre (ANG/96/B01 BL2101) for the months the staff worked without salary after the termination of the project.
Attached is the list of pending salaries we have received from you.
As the documents I have at my disposal are not always consistent, I should be grateful if you could confirm that the period covered is end of July 2000 to end of January 2000 or, if not, if you could provide me with the specific dates for which salary is claimed for each person.
I also note that you are not included in the list of staff whose salary is pending, although I understand you have also been working during the period concerned. Could you clarify this as well?
I look forward to hearing from you soon.
On 18 October 2001 from Leon Kukkuk to Stephen Kinloch:
Attached is a summary of all amounts outstanding to a total of $95 207.78 (before end October 2001).
Our account details are as follows:
. . .
We are looking forward to a prompt solution to this issue.
Although we won’t find any compensation for the mental anguish, stress and waste of our lives caused by this mess, a final resolution would also depend on the following three issues:
1. Some very clear answers need to be given regarding who planned this project, why they planned it, who protected it for more than three years and what steps are being taken to prevent them planning similar things in the future.
2. It has come to my attention that there is a perception amongst certain people that I am the one being investigated for misappropriating funds. I strongly suspect that Jurgen Spangenberg, from the UNDP Insecurity Unit, is responsible for this perception. Whatever the case may be, this is as serious as it is unacceptable. Do you have any suggestions how this misunderstanding can be cleared up? I will highly appreciate it.
I am looking forward to better relations in the future (naturally with a UNDP that is diametrically different from what is now)
Thank you very much and hoping to hear from you soon.
On 21 October 2001 from Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk:
Thank you very much for the information.
However, in the table, there are elements that we have not discussed, while the precise information earlier requested is not present.
As per my previous email (below), I should be most grateful if you could confirm for each person concerned the precise amounts of unpaid salaries and corresponding dates for the period end of July 2000 to end of January 2000, that is after the termination of the project.
Please note that I will be away until 28 of October as of today.
My colleague, Francisco de Almeida, will be following-up in my absence.
On 25 October 2001 from Leon Kukkuk to Francisco de Almeida:
Francisco, The list contains the salaries of the national staff for the months of July 2000 to February 2001 inclusive, minus amounts paid to them from two sources - either from my own funds or from the sale of equipment. Although the centre closed at the end of January 2001 this was a decision only taken on 22 January 2001 after we had not received any responses to the e-mails (14 January 2001) sent to Teresa Felix and Stan Nkwain and a letter (14 January 2001) to the Co-ordinator of the UN system. We were therefore obliged to offer the staff a months notice and severance pay. Carlos Alberto Gomes is offered an amount of -- per month for looking after the equipment and vehicles from March 2001 to August 2001 (--), under very difficult and at times threatening circumstances.
On the same day from Francisco de Almeida to Leon Kukkuk:
The message below was certainly sent to me by mistake. I am not handling this issue that, I must confess, is getting more and more confused. Stephen will be back early next week. Please liase with him to find out the status of the payment of salaries amounting to $33,340 to the local staff that our Office exceptionally accepted to advance while working out the final solution with RUTEC and UNOPS.
Regards, Francisco
On 01 November 2001 from Leon Kukkuk to Stephen Kinloch:
I appreciate your efforts.
Please provide me with some sort of timescale:
1. for payment of amount of local salaries.
2. Of audit.
Remember, as more time passes more darkness will be shed on this subject, and more expenses accumulate. The time that I am spending without an income or freedom to secure a reliable means of income is also becoming unacceptably long and need to be taken into consideration.
On the same day from Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk:
Thank you very much for the data on unpaid amounts related to the project, as requested. I truly appreciate your effort to provide a comprehensive picture of the situation, which does give an idea of the problem.
Unfortunately, it also appears more and more that given its complexity, the lack of consistency sometimes between various figures, and the number of actors involved, only a thorough audit could at this stage help determining accurately responsibilities, duties and amounts involved, to settle the issue. We are following up with UNOPS, from whom a response has not yet been received.
Meanwhile, pending such clarification, UNDP has expressed its willingness, and is determined, to settle from its own resources the most immediate, urgent, and clear-cut aspect of the problem, which is the payment of local staff for the period they have been working while not under contract.
Given the above, steps are now been made by this office to settle payment of salaries to local staff for the period of July 2000 and February 2001, on the basis of the attached table received from the staff, as initially envisaged.
This obviously does not meet all expectations and does not sort out or solve all problems, but at least allows us to move forward.
I truly hope it will nevertheless be viewed as a concrete step in the right direction, and will keep you posted of developments in due course.
On 20 November 2001 from Leon Kukkuk to Stephen Kinloch:
Dear Stephen,
I am not getting any response regarding the sort of timetable for payment of local salaries or audit, but have decided to spend the rest of the year in Huambo.
Please keep me up to date with what is happening. The tel. system in Huambo appears to continue to be less than reliable but I can be contacted through WFP radioroom or OCHA as alternatives should it be necessary.
I would very much appreciate your assistance in this regard.
Have a good holiday season + Christmas, etc.
On 26 November 2002 from Stephen Kinloch to Leon Kukkuk:
Thanks for your message. And apologies for my delay in responding to you.
Salaries for local staff (based on table initially submitted by them) have been approved and are being processed for payment. The issue of a formal audit is still being followed up with UNOPS New York.
Unfortunately, for reasons beyond my control, I am no longer authorized to be in touch with you formally on behalf of UNDP, so please do not consider this message as official communication, but as a personal and informal message.
Best wishes to you too.
On 24 January 2002 the last meaningful correspondence with UNDP from Leon Kukkuk to Francisco de Almeida:
We are in receipt of your letter of 22 January 2002 and it has been distributed to some of the staff. We are looking forward to have the considerable ill feeling and confusion related to this project cleared once and for all.
. . .
In addition I would like to request that you stay directly in contact with me. Working through intermediaries and Carlos Gomes, who is working in Kaála, creates a lot of extra work and confusion. If it is the case that UNDP no longer wants to talk to me or that I am persona non grata or responsible for the current problems, the correct procedure would be to motivate this decision by way of the available documentation. Until such a time, I have been responsible for the project and am now responsible to find a solution to its problems. This is a decision taken amongst ourselves and will remain the case until we decide otherwise.
As you may be well aware, I have tried my utmost to find a solution in an agreeable and open manner through maintaining good relations with UNDP in the face of threats, insults, disrespect and gross incompetence on their part. In over three years we have made no progress or received any meaningful responses. If UNDP cannot respond in a like manner, one becomes inclined to believe that perhaps they have something to hide. This is unsuitable behaviour for a public agency that depends for its survival on contributions of our money. I sincerely hope the present circumstances will not continue indefinitely.
It has continued indefinitely.
Over the intervening years my understanding of corruption also increased dramatically. Corrupt practices are invariably very complex, deliberately so, confusion is a key element in how they function and even if they can be unravelled, a wealth of technical jargon makes it difficult to recount the process in a manner that can be readily understood. I am now more aware of how scams are hidden behind a veneer of legitimacy, with legally enforceable contracts, carefully designed to fit into the cracks between different agencies, institutions and governments, even the cracks between national and international law. I now know how accountability is spread so thinly as to be virtually meaningless, which incidentally, combined with complex and overlapping bureaucratic systems, also provides the required opacity for these scams to function. Deniability, or potential deniability, remains the primary motivation informing key decisions at all levels. I now know how the strange audit procedures within the UN system encourage rather than prevent corruption. In looking forward to an audit at UNDP, which never happened, I did not then realise that I was looking forward to process that is used to cover up crimes, not to expose them.
For a long time I naively believed that all I needed to do was to make UNDP aware of how much harm their behaviour was causing and then they would stop. It was too late for me by the time I understood the need for scapegoats in scams and that in this project I was to be that scapegoat. There was no concern about what would happen to the local staff, they were not even considered as human beings. As I embarked in 2002 on a series of interviews explaining the circumstances of this UNDP scam, I immediately found myself under attack by UNDP as Francisco de Almeida reacted thus (and I quote from one of his own documents):
“In a live interview I informed Mr. Mario Vaz from Radio Ecclésia and the listeners of the 12 o’clock news journal that the allegations made by Mr Leon Kukkuk did not correspond to the truth. I clarified the following:
If there was misappropriation of funds, Mr Leon Kukkuk in his capacity of former RUTEC Programme Manager would be the best person to provide any clarification on this manner;”
I am indeed the best person to provide this clarification and have since complied with this request in writing my book, a book that incidentally is the only thing that stands today between myself and me being on the receiving end of accusations and suspicion of corruption. To date nobody from the United Nations System or from UNDP has responded to the conclusions drawn in that book. There may be a case to be made for defamation. It is not a case that can be made easily, by one individual pitted against a corrupt and powerful organisation.
The last official reaction from UNDP comes in the form of a statement issued on 13 January 2002, by Erick de Mul, at the time the UNDP Resident Representative in Angola. Acknowledging the difficulties that we had suffered over so many years and guaranteeing that “our office has pledged to do everything since the end of 2000 to find a solution to this difficult situation,” he then proceeds to deny any wrongdoing, stating instead:
“However, as you know UNDP did not have any direct responsibility in the execution and implementation of the (project) in the province of Huambo. The responsibility of UNDP is limited to the formulation and financing of the project.”
With this statement whatever little respect I may ever have had for Erick de Mul (and it was never very much) disappeared along with the last vestiges of whatever confidence I may have had in UNDP or any of its staff. In searching for any precedence to this sort of argument, I almost immediately stumbled on the names of what is generally considered the vilest criminals of the twentieth century, who tried to use a similar argument and did not get away with it.
There is no reason why UNDP should get away with it.
Stephen Kinloch, you may be dismayed to find that you are being identified and named. It is nothing personal. Neither you nor any of your colleagues mean anything to me as individuals. It is simply a matter of your names having surfaced in an issue with which I am concerned. I am fully entitled to use those names in this context and to use them again if they crop up again in any other context. I make no apologies for that. Everybody that I have named still work for the United Nations, some have even been promoted, most are no longer in Angola. I was the one left behind, trying to cope, alone, with the shambles created by UNDP.
Nevertheless, I am not even picking only on UNDP. The Danish Refugee Council (examples here and here), Medicines sans Frontières, Medicines du Monde and DAPP are all currently under my spotlight.
UNDP may already be quite good at this but they still have a lot to learn from the Danish Refugee Council on how to use fear, insult and intimidation as a management tool. UNDP might comfortably stumble along in its own little bubble; it is yet to achieve the same obliviousness to its surroundings as do MSF. UNDP might be endemically corrupt, its scams however pale into small-scale, amateurish insignificance compared to those of DAPP, who send out criminal gangs to dominate entire countries.
I am concerned with the role of the entire International Community, whose members enter into my home, Africa, only long enough to make a mess, destroying not only my life but the lives of everybody around me, and then disappear.
This makes us go hungry, it makes us fight wars with one another, and it makes us indulge in our own corruption. We suffer from AIDS, TB and Malaria and our children die in vast numbers. There is definitely a case for severe potential liability, including for any related claims, proceedings, damages, injuries, liabilities, losses, costs, and expenses.
Are you prepared to make that case?
Sunday, 7 October 2007
Is the noose finally tightening?
UNDP has shown remarkable skill at avoiding scrutiny of its activities over the last decade or so.
Anecdotal evidence of UNDP as corrupt and inept circulated fairly extensively but was never followed up for various reasons. Everybody just knew that they were inept and corrupt, but nobody was allowed to talk about it.
The very few voices of concern more or less shouted into a void of indifference.
Even as calls for reform of the United Nations became more urgent from the beginning of the decade onwards, this concentrated more on the UN Secretariat as well as reform of the outdated structures such as the Security Council.
UNDP continued blissfully with making grandiose promises of all the wonderful things that they were doing and are going to do. Efforts by a very small number of people pointing out that they were not doing any of these things and had no intention of doing any of them invariably fell on deaf ears. Or rather on ears that were concerned somewhere else. Each time it appeared as if attention might shift to UNDP, something else more urgent cropped up. For a while the scandal surrounding Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank, dominated the discourse surrounding the unaccountability of International Institutions.
But if UNDP seriously believed that they will remain outside of the limelight indefinitely – it is possible that they may have believed such a thing, considering the extent to which they are stuck within their own little bubble – recent developments demonstrate just how wrong they are.
The small trickle of publicly available information has turned in the last few months into a torrent.
The IO Watch website claims: “Articles and allegations raise problems in various UNDP country offices, many of them going back for years.”
The current issues include North Korea, Burma, Cambodia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Rwanda, Russia, Ivory Coast, DRC, Afghanistan, Somalia, Philippines.
It is by no means the entire list. The real crimes are still to be exposed.
At the IO Watch site we are told: “They involve disregard for rules, intrigues, punishment of whistle-blowers, improper staffing, weak audits, selling improper travel documents, and assisting diamond-dealing and other dubious involvements in war-torn or struggling countries. At UNDP headquarters, allegations involve a meaningless transparency policy, poor governance in a compliant UNDP Executive Board, UNDP management refusal to supply audit reports to that board, inadequate internal audit work, manipulation of Internet blogs, belligerent top leadership, stonewalling on major issues, serious financial management control problems, and rejection of established UN policies and an insistence on an independent operational status.”
A survey in 2004 of staff integrity produced surprisingly negative comments on UN leadership and the management culture. Concerns have overwhelmingly come to focus on UNDP.
Perhaps the most central elements of this UNDP situation can be found in serious troubles uncovered in the UNDP office in North Korea in early 2007, which led Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to call for a “world-wide audit of all programmes and funds.”
Trouble started when Artjon Shkurtaj, UNDP’s Chief of Operations and Security in North Korea (2004-2006) witnessed a range of UNDP abuses such as the funnelling of hard cash to the rogue regime of Kim Jong Il. He reported the issues to his superiors at UNDP. He was told not to make trouble. Finally Shkurtaj blew the whistle outside UNDP. UNDP then sacked him.
Fortunately, the UN has made provision for such situations. Kofi Annan had set up an Ethics Office, housed in the Secretariat and reporting to the secretary-general. Among other things, the Ethics Office is tasked to protect whistleblowers from retaliation.
So Shkurtaj took his case to the UN Ethics Office protesting that he had been sacked in retaliation for his whistle-blowing.
There, the ethics director, Robert Benson, a Canadian, finally produced a confidential memo addressed to the head of UNDP, Administrator Kemal Dervis, and copied to Ban and a number of others. He saw grounds that “a prima facie case had been established” that UNDP was punishing Shkurtaj for his whistle blowing. Mentioning “independent and corroborative information” for his finding, Benson supported Shkurtaj. UNDP officials denied this, saying that he was on a short-term contract that had simply expired.
By now the promised “world-wide audit of all programmes and funds,” after many delays, had shrunk to become only a single audit of the North Korea office.
On 01 June 2007 UNDP issued a statement regarding the preliminary audit report on UN operations in North Korea saying:
“UNDP will be transmitting a formal management response to the ACABQ shortly. UNDP would welcome a continuation of the audit process, including a visit by the UNBOA to DPRK. UNDP looks forward to the final audit report.”
This audit itself was stonewalled, but did manage to find violations of UNDP regulations. Eventually this was tacitly acknowledged, then swept under the carpet by the UNDP management. In a letter sent to UNDP, Mark Wallace, the US State Department ambassador at the UN for management and reform, wrote that the auditors’ testimony shows it is “impossible” for the agency to verify whether its funds “have actually been used for bona fide development purposes or if the DPRK [North Korea] has converted such funds for its own illicit purposes.”
Paradoxically enough, neither Wallace nor the U.S. government were allowed copies of the audits, which are considered “management tools” by UNDP and not even available to the governments that finance the organization.
It also turns out that UNDP, which has no ethics office of its own, is refusing to recognize the jurisdiction of the UN Secretariat’s Ethics Office, promising instead that they will be making their own arrangements for a “complementary external review” that would cover both its North Korea operations and Shkurtaj’s allegations.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon discussed all of this with UNDP Administrator Kemal Dervis, but none of the substance of these discussions is publicly available. Kemal Dervis has also not held a press conference since December 2006. He is simply not available to provide some sort of clarity on what is going on.
On 11 September 2007 the International Herald Tribune reported that:
“UNDP and other specialized UN agencies intend to meet later this month to try to define standards for whistle-blowers, since the entities contend they do not fall under UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's ethics office.”
It is a remarkable feat of arrogance on the side of these agencies to believe that it is up to them to determine, by themselves, under what jurisdiction they want to fall. UNDP did not bring up this point when the Ethics Office was created in 2005. They did not even mention it when they became aware that this office was investigating one of their decisions. It only became an issue when this office made a decision that they did not like.
The IO Watch website suggests that “UNDP is, for most practical purposes, morphing from a development agency into a species of highly privileged rogue state - operating, it seems, outside any jurisdiction.”
Notwithstanding all the talk about jurisdiction, it still remains a fact that the concept of “investigations” within the UN system should also be taken with a pinch of salt.
In an article “The lies from within,” Francis Montil, former Deputy Director of the United Nations' internal investigation agency, OIOS says:
"The culture" is one in which "the hypocrite, the liar, the fraudster, the nepotist and the dilettante is more likely to survive and progress than the average 'thinking' reasonable man or woman".
"The oil-for-food scandal taught them nothing," says Montil, who believes the fraud and corruption in the 2005 tsunami reconstruction period will come back to haunt the UN, which has willfully ignored all the warning signs.
A lot more pressure needs to be applied if a UN agency, especially the so-called principle agency of the system is to be held truly accountable.
The Government Accountability Project (GAP) wrote a letter on 03 October 2007 in this regard to;
Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary General
The United Nations
New York, New York
Dear Mr. Secretary General:
As you may be aware, in 2005, the Government Accountability Project (GAP) provided technical assistance to the Office of the Under Secretary for Management at the United Nations in its efforts to improve internal oversight and transparency. When the Secretary-General issued the bulletin entitled “Protection against retaliation for reporting misconduct and for cooperating with duly authorized audits or investigations” (SGB/2005/21) on December 19, 2005, GAP publicly praised the United Nations for applying best practices in whistleblower protection. However, since that time, serious concerns have arisen regarding the effective implementation of the policy.
We were deeply dismayed to learn of the treatment of Artjon Shkurtaj, a whistleblower who was retaliated against by UNDP management after disclosing misconduct in the UN office in North Korea. The Washington Post (“Reprisal Indicated in a U.N. Program, August 21, 2007)” reported that the UN Development Programme refused a request from the UN Ethics Office to submit to an investigation of Mr. Shkurtaj’s disclosures.
Instead, Kemal Dervis, Administrator of UNDP, announced that he would name candidates for an ad hoc panel to investigate the matter, effectively asserting that UNDP will define its own separate ethical standard. At GAP, we are surprised and troubled to learn that UN Programmes apparently can opt out of the whistleblower protection policy and reject Ethics Office findings.
This ad hoc decision-making comes, unfortunately, as no surprise to those who have watched the reform process at the United Nations closely. In their wisdom, the members of the Redesign Panel on the United Nations System of Administration of Justice anticipated the “confusion” that would surround the scope of the rulings of the Ethics Office and, calling its functions “[A]n essential component of the reform of the Organization,” urged the Secretary General to clarify its jurisdiction more than a year ago.
We would appreciate your written clarification of the basis upon which a troubled progamme, such as UNDP, can be allowed to avoid independent scrutiny of the propriety of its conduct.
Mr. Secretary General, we wish to second the appeal of the Redesign Panel; we ask that you respond positively and urgently apply the rulings of the Ethics Office to the UN Funds and Programmes. The “UN Delivering as One” initiative cannot be achieved with each unit applying a different set of ethical standards, nor can “One UN” be implemented at the country level if led by a UNDP that insists on its own institutional autonomy in the face of General Assembly resolutions.
To remove all controversy and place the United Nations firmly on the road to reform, we appeal to you, Mr. Secretary General, to invoke your authority to oblige the United Nations system to abide by a single code of ethics and to address immediately the plight of those staff members who sought to protect the mission of the United Nations and instead exposed themselves to injustice and retaliation at the hands of unscrupulous actors.
We look forward to your response and wish to take this opportunity to assure you of our highest consideration.
Very truly yours,
Beatrice Edwards
International Program Director
Government Accountablity Project
One can only hope that they receive a response.
Anecdotal evidence of UNDP as corrupt and inept circulated fairly extensively but was never followed up for various reasons. Everybody just knew that they were inept and corrupt, but nobody was allowed to talk about it.
The very few voices of concern more or less shouted into a void of indifference.
Even as calls for reform of the United Nations became more urgent from the beginning of the decade onwards, this concentrated more on the UN Secretariat as well as reform of the outdated structures such as the Security Council.
UNDP continued blissfully with making grandiose promises of all the wonderful things that they were doing and are going to do. Efforts by a very small number of people pointing out that they were not doing any of these things and had no intention of doing any of them invariably fell on deaf ears. Or rather on ears that were concerned somewhere else. Each time it appeared as if attention might shift to UNDP, something else more urgent cropped up. For a while the scandal surrounding Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank, dominated the discourse surrounding the unaccountability of International Institutions.
But if UNDP seriously believed that they will remain outside of the limelight indefinitely – it is possible that they may have believed such a thing, considering the extent to which they are stuck within their own little bubble – recent developments demonstrate just how wrong they are.
The small trickle of publicly available information has turned in the last few months into a torrent.
The IO Watch website claims: “Articles and allegations raise problems in various UNDP country offices, many of them going back for years.”
The current issues include North Korea, Burma, Cambodia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Rwanda, Russia, Ivory Coast, DRC, Afghanistan, Somalia, Philippines.
It is by no means the entire list. The real crimes are still to be exposed.
At the IO Watch site we are told: “They involve disregard for rules, intrigues, punishment of whistle-blowers, improper staffing, weak audits, selling improper travel documents, and assisting diamond-dealing and other dubious involvements in war-torn or struggling countries. At UNDP headquarters, allegations involve a meaningless transparency policy, poor governance in a compliant UNDP Executive Board, UNDP management refusal to supply audit reports to that board, inadequate internal audit work, manipulation of Internet blogs, belligerent top leadership, stonewalling on major issues, serious financial management control problems, and rejection of established UN policies and an insistence on an independent operational status.”
A survey in 2004 of staff integrity produced surprisingly negative comments on UN leadership and the management culture. Concerns have overwhelmingly come to focus on UNDP.
Perhaps the most central elements of this UNDP situation can be found in serious troubles uncovered in the UNDP office in North Korea in early 2007, which led Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to call for a “world-wide audit of all programmes and funds.”
Trouble started when Artjon Shkurtaj, UNDP’s Chief of Operations and Security in North Korea (2004-2006) witnessed a range of UNDP abuses such as the funnelling of hard cash to the rogue regime of Kim Jong Il. He reported the issues to his superiors at UNDP. He was told not to make trouble. Finally Shkurtaj blew the whistle outside UNDP. UNDP then sacked him.
Fortunately, the UN has made provision for such situations. Kofi Annan had set up an Ethics Office, housed in the Secretariat and reporting to the secretary-general. Among other things, the Ethics Office is tasked to protect whistleblowers from retaliation.
So Shkurtaj took his case to the UN Ethics Office protesting that he had been sacked in retaliation for his whistle-blowing.
There, the ethics director, Robert Benson, a Canadian, finally produced a confidential memo addressed to the head of UNDP, Administrator Kemal Dervis, and copied to Ban and a number of others. He saw grounds that “a prima facie case had been established” that UNDP was punishing Shkurtaj for his whistle blowing. Mentioning “independent and corroborative information” for his finding, Benson supported Shkurtaj. UNDP officials denied this, saying that he was on a short-term contract that had simply expired.
By now the promised “world-wide audit of all programmes and funds,” after many delays, had shrunk to become only a single audit of the North Korea office.
On 01 June 2007 UNDP issued a statement regarding the preliminary audit report on UN operations in North Korea saying:
“UNDP will be transmitting a formal management response to the ACABQ shortly. UNDP would welcome a continuation of the audit process, including a visit by the UNBOA to DPRK. UNDP looks forward to the final audit report.”
This audit itself was stonewalled, but did manage to find violations of UNDP regulations. Eventually this was tacitly acknowledged, then swept under the carpet by the UNDP management. In a letter sent to UNDP, Mark Wallace, the US State Department ambassador at the UN for management and reform, wrote that the auditors’ testimony shows it is “impossible” for the agency to verify whether its funds “have actually been used for bona fide development purposes or if the DPRK [North Korea] has converted such funds for its own illicit purposes.”
Paradoxically enough, neither Wallace nor the U.S. government were allowed copies of the audits, which are considered “management tools” by UNDP and not even available to the governments that finance the organization.
It also turns out that UNDP, which has no ethics office of its own, is refusing to recognize the jurisdiction of the UN Secretariat’s Ethics Office, promising instead that they will be making their own arrangements for a “complementary external review” that would cover both its North Korea operations and Shkurtaj’s allegations.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon discussed all of this with UNDP Administrator Kemal Dervis, but none of the substance of these discussions is publicly available. Kemal Dervis has also not held a press conference since December 2006. He is simply not available to provide some sort of clarity on what is going on.
On 11 September 2007 the International Herald Tribune reported that:
“UNDP and other specialized UN agencies intend to meet later this month to try to define standards for whistle-blowers, since the entities contend they do not fall under UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's ethics office.”
It is a remarkable feat of arrogance on the side of these agencies to believe that it is up to them to determine, by themselves, under what jurisdiction they want to fall. UNDP did not bring up this point when the Ethics Office was created in 2005. They did not even mention it when they became aware that this office was investigating one of their decisions. It only became an issue when this office made a decision that they did not like.
The IO Watch website suggests that “UNDP is, for most practical purposes, morphing from a development agency into a species of highly privileged rogue state - operating, it seems, outside any jurisdiction.”
Notwithstanding all the talk about jurisdiction, it still remains a fact that the concept of “investigations” within the UN system should also be taken with a pinch of salt.
In an article “The lies from within,” Francis Montil, former Deputy Director of the United Nations' internal investigation agency, OIOS says:
"The culture" is one in which "the hypocrite, the liar, the fraudster, the nepotist and the dilettante is more likely to survive and progress than the average 'thinking' reasonable man or woman".
"The oil-for-food scandal taught them nothing," says Montil, who believes the fraud and corruption in the 2005 tsunami reconstruction period will come back to haunt the UN, which has willfully ignored all the warning signs.
A lot more pressure needs to be applied if a UN agency, especially the so-called principle agency of the system is to be held truly accountable.
The Government Accountability Project (GAP) wrote a letter on 03 October 2007 in this regard to;
Ban Ki-Moon, Secretary General
The United Nations
New York, New York
Dear Mr. Secretary General:
As you may be aware, in 2005, the Government Accountability Project (GAP) provided technical assistance to the Office of the Under Secretary for Management at the United Nations in its efforts to improve internal oversight and transparency. When the Secretary-General issued the bulletin entitled “Protection against retaliation for reporting misconduct and for cooperating with duly authorized audits or investigations” (SGB/2005/21) on December 19, 2005, GAP publicly praised the United Nations for applying best practices in whistleblower protection. However, since that time, serious concerns have arisen regarding the effective implementation of the policy.
We were deeply dismayed to learn of the treatment of Artjon Shkurtaj, a whistleblower who was retaliated against by UNDP management after disclosing misconduct in the UN office in North Korea. The Washington Post (“Reprisal Indicated in a U.N. Program, August 21, 2007)” reported that the UN Development Programme refused a request from the UN Ethics Office to submit to an investigation of Mr. Shkurtaj’s disclosures.
Instead, Kemal Dervis, Administrator of UNDP, announced that he would name candidates for an ad hoc panel to investigate the matter, effectively asserting that UNDP will define its own separate ethical standard. At GAP, we are surprised and troubled to learn that UN Programmes apparently can opt out of the whistleblower protection policy and reject Ethics Office findings.
This ad hoc decision-making comes, unfortunately, as no surprise to those who have watched the reform process at the United Nations closely. In their wisdom, the members of the Redesign Panel on the United Nations System of Administration of Justice anticipated the “confusion” that would surround the scope of the rulings of the Ethics Office and, calling its functions “[A]n essential component of the reform of the Organization,” urged the Secretary General to clarify its jurisdiction more than a year ago.
We would appreciate your written clarification of the basis upon which a troubled progamme, such as UNDP, can be allowed to avoid independent scrutiny of the propriety of its conduct.
Mr. Secretary General, we wish to second the appeal of the Redesign Panel; we ask that you respond positively and urgently apply the rulings of the Ethics Office to the UN Funds and Programmes. The “UN Delivering as One” initiative cannot be achieved with each unit applying a different set of ethical standards, nor can “One UN” be implemented at the country level if led by a UNDP that insists on its own institutional autonomy in the face of General Assembly resolutions.
To remove all controversy and place the United Nations firmly on the road to reform, we appeal to you, Mr. Secretary General, to invoke your authority to oblige the United Nations system to abide by a single code of ethics and to address immediately the plight of those staff members who sought to protect the mission of the United Nations and instead exposed themselves to injustice and retaliation at the hands of unscrupulous actors.
We look forward to your response and wish to take this opportunity to assure you of our highest consideration.
Very truly yours,
Beatrice Edwards
International Program Director
Government Accountablity Project
One can only hope that they receive a response.
Wednesday, 19 September 2007
How the UN system, specifically UNDP and UNOPS respond to requests for audits
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.
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 $1.65 million made by the international community.
‘We don’t want to see money or sign cheques, we only want to see that promises made to us are honoured.’
With Fernando Arroyo, OCHA Field Advisor:
The project is one of the most visible activities of the CRP in the province, yet receives no logistical or financial support.
Date: Fri, 15 Jun 2001 15:27:44 +0200
From: "Bereket Sletzion"
To: Herbert Haraldsson
CC: M Ali-Kparah
Subject: (no subject)
Subject: UNDP ANG - Project "Capacity Building For the Community Rehabilitation and National Reconciliation Programme..." (ANG/96/B01).
Background: The project was executed by UNOPS and a South African company (RUTEC) was selected to implement activities whose funds were US$ 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
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.
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.
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