Analysis: Will Fraud Conviction Help U.N. Reform Its Secretive 'Culture of Impunity'?
By Claudia Rosett and George Russell
Fox News
June 13, 2007
That’s how United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon hailed the conviction for fraud and corruption of a former top U.N. procurement official, Sanjaya Bahel, who was found guilty on June 7 in New York federal court of steering some $100 million worth of U.N. peacekeeping support contracts to the well-connected family of a fellow-Indian friend.
But Ban’s self-congratulatory remark is misleading.
The saga of Bahel’s extensive career of corruption extends well beyond his individual case, into a U.N. system that still is mired in murky practices and desperately lacking in dependable oversight or any normal administration of justice.
Even as Bahel faced up to 30 years in prison for his misdeeds, top U.N. officials continued to dodge questions about how and why the U.N. itself twice exonerated Bahel over a period of years, most recently in December 2004, even while the organization lethargically examined much the same evidence that persuaded a New York jury to convict the man after less than half a day of deliberations.
Moreover, an examination of U.N. documentation that did not surface during Bahel’s trial shows that even in his case, the rot extends further than the public record shows. The risk now is that Bahel’s conviction itself could become an excuse for the U.N. to cover up even deeper and more widespread problems in the U.N.’s multi-billion-dollar procurement department and in the U.N. system of justice.
According to court evidence and testimony, Bahel’s scams began at least as far back as 1999, when he secretly began scheming to help companies connected with the family of a longtime friend, Nanak Kohli, to obtain lucrative U.N. contracts for which they were not qualified.
Bahel, who was both a U.N. employee and an Indian civil servant “seconded” to the international organization, bent and twisted U.N. rules in a variety of ways to steer contracts covering everything from skilled-labor supply to computers and short-wave radios to a number of firms, including a state-owned Indian telecommunications flagship, Telecommunications Consultants International Ltd. (TCIL).
At the same time, Bahel manipulated a spineless and incurious U.N. bureaucracy to ignore complaints from TCIL workers — backed by U.N. field staff — that the contractors were stealing their on-site food and housing allowances in peacekeeping zones, and firing them if they complained.
In return, Bahel over the years received from Kohli thousands in cash, first-class air travel upgrades, a laptop computer, pricey tennis tournament tickets and bargain rental on a luxury apartment in midtown Manhattan, which Bahel finally purchased secretly from his friends at a cut-rate price.
