U.N. Ignores Its Own Procurement Ban
By George Russell
Fox News
January 14, 2008
How serious is the United Nations about much-touted reform of its scandal ridden, multi-billion-dollar procurement system? To hear senior U.N. officials tell it, very serious.
But that was before FOX News uncovered the case of Corimec S.p.A., an Italian firm that sold the U.N. more than $30 million-worth of goods in 2006 (and many millions more in previous years), and which was suspended from the U.N.'s list of authorized vendors on March 15, 2007 for involvement in one of the highest-profile bribery scandals in the multi-national organization's history.
Little more than a month after the United Nations Procurement Service dropped Corimec from its vendor list, the flagship United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) decided to ignore the ban and spent more than $2.1 million on emergency housing kits from the firm. The reason: UNDP officials declared that as a legally separate U.N. agency, they were not bound to honor the Procurement Service sanction.
The fact that UNDP, a $5 billion development agency, chose to override the vendor suspension is particularly significant, because UNDP is the premier agency through which the U.N. operates on the ground in most of the 160 countries that it services. UNDP is also the lead agency in an experimental program known as “One U.N.” that is ultimately intended, ironically enough, to rationalize the delivery and efficiency of U.N. services around the world.
The UNDP decision to disregard the blacklist inspired by the "serious" (UNDP's term) issue of the bribery of U.N. officials raises a host of questions about the actual status of the effort to clean up corruption within the organization's multi-billion-dollar procurement business, which was described by U.N. investigators in 2006 as wrapped in "systematic abuse," "a pattern of corrupt practices," and "a culture of impunity."
Chief among the questions is whether the U.N.'s left hand cares what the right hand is doing in an increasingly balkanized organization where the secretary-general, who appoints all the top officials, is apparently restrained from controlling their behavior afterwards.
That issue seems particularly acute now that the U.N. — which admits it has been badly tainted by corruption and inefficiency — has seen its overall budget grow at a spectacular clip as its various parts claim a special position in addressing the world’s multiplying problems and demand billions in additional funding to do so.
Confidential UNDP records obtained by FOX News show that UNDP officials began considering the idea of using Corimec barely three weeks after the blacklisting was announced, based on a request from UNDP's Pakistan office. UNDP officials were fully aware of Corimec's suspension, and the reason for it.
Click here for the full story.
Senator Tom Coburn
Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, and International Security
340 Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510
Phone: 202-224-2254 Fax: 202-228-3796
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