UNITED NATIONS | U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has referred the U.N. "good governance" chief to the U.N. Disciplinary Committee, acting just two days before the official's retirement.
The official, Guido Bertucci, headed the U.N. Department of Public Administration and Development Management (DPADM) until Thursday evening - his final day at work before taking early retirement amid a series of corruption investigations.
His pension benefits, accumulated over three decades at the United Nations, remains untouchable and the prospect of any disciplinary action remote, U.N. officials said.
The case involves a series of internal U.N. audits going back more than a year that focus on mismanagement and misspent money from a $2.8 million trust fund established by the Greek government to help develop "good governance" and "transparency" in the Balkans and Eastern Europe.
"The secretary-general feels that there was no evidence of fraud, but credible evidence of mismanagement," a senior U.N. official told The Washington Times. "He feels there should be accountability."
Mr. Bertucci - who stopped cooperating with inspectors midway though the investigations - declined to return phone calls this week, as did his boss, Undersecretary General for Economic and Social Affairs (DESA) Sha Zukang.
Officials in the U.N. press office, the Office of Internal Oversight Services and the Administrative Law Unit of the Human Resources department refused to discuss the matter.
"[DESA] contacted us this morning and told us the media were asking questions and reminded us we cannot respond to cases that are confidential," said an official with the law unit.
