UNDP To Pay Whistleblower 14 Months Back Pay for Lack of Due Process, Oversight Must Increase
By Matthew Russell Lee
Inner City Press
June 27, 2008
UNITED NATIONS, June 27 -- The UN Ethics Office has recommended that the UN Development Program pay as restitution 14 months back pay to the whistleblower who exposed irregularities in the agency's programs in North Korea. Ethics Officer Robert Benson, in an eight-page report, specifically finds a lack of due process. UNDP rushed out a statement that its senior management is in the process of studying the recommendations [but w]e also believe that there was full due process."
This is not the first time UNDP has disagreed with the UN's specialist Ethics Office. When that Office found a prima facie case of retaliation by UNDP, the agency's Administrator Kemal Dervis declined to follow the recommendation that he allow the Ethics Office to conduct an investigation. Instead, Dervis appointed his own "Independent Review Panel."
Friday, Inner City Press asked the U.S. Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad about the report, and attempts by UNDP to re-open its program in North Korea. Ambassador Khalilzad responded, "We believe the recommendations of the Independent Review Panel, and there are quite a set of them, especially that audits should be made available" and about "not appropriate oversight... need to be implemented." Amb. Khalilzad continued, on camera, "We want to see a plan... a timeline."
