Top United Nations officials assure that reforming the world body's corrupt multibillion-dollar procurement system is advancing after U.N. investigators in 2006 uncovered "a culture of impunity."
Trouble is, that culture is interwoven through the fabric of today's United Nations. Witness the $5 billion United Nations Development Agency.
In March 2007 Corimec S.p.A., an Italian company, got bounced from the U.N.'s list of authorized vendors for its reported involvement in a high-profile bribery scandal. In 2006 alone Corimec did $30 million in business with Turtle Bay.
It's blacklisting, however, didn't stop the U.N.'s flagship development office from securing a $2.1 million deal with Corimec within weeks after the U.N. Procurement Service dropped the firm from its vendor list, Fox News reported.
The development agency said it isn't legally bound to honor the sanction and, in fact, didn't notify the U.N. Procurement Service or Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon of its decision.
If any of this sounds familiar, it should. It's the same response the UNDP gave last year in a "prima facie case of retaliation" against a fired whistle-blower. The agency said it was exempt from a new U.N. whistle-blower code. And that was fine with Mr. Ban.
Nothing changes at the U.N. Much like a hydra rising up from the muck, the multi-headed beast refuses to be reformed. And Mr. Ban? Well, he's no Hercules.
