At UN, Resistance to Financial Disclosure Seen As Pervasive, from Two Top Peacekeepers through UNDP
By Matthew Russell Lee
Inner City Press
January 29, 2008
UNITED NATIONS, January 29 -- Resisting a call for financial disclosure by Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, the UN officials who have not made public even their decision to maintain financial confidentiality include the head of the UN Population Fund, Thoraya Obaid, Assistant Secretaries General for Peacekeeping Edmond Mulet and Dmitry Titov, whose title includes "the rule of law," two ASGs in the UN Development Program and three in UNICEF, the UN's honorary USG on poverty issues, Jeffrey Sachs and the UN's own Controller, Warren Sach.
The top 190 UN officials were asked by Ban to voluntarily disclose some of their finances, in order to give conflict of interest assurances to the general public as well as member states. In response to Inner City Press' questions on Tuesday, the UN spokesperson stated that of these 190 officials, 92 have agreed to participate, by including their names on the Secretary-General's financial disclosure web site. Ninety-two of 190 is less than half, and as Inner City Press pointed out, more than half of the 92 names on the site do not have live links to any disclosure forms. Of those with live links, at least sixteen have written on their forms that they "choose to maintain confidentiality." Inner City Press asked, are you counting these as participating in disclosure? The answer was yes, click here for the transcript.
This means that nearly 100 senior UN officials, or half of those to whom Ban directed his request, have not even consented to make public their decision to maintain confidentiality. While it should be easy to determine who these reticent UN officials are, the UN does not make it easy to determine to whom it has given Under Secretary General and Assistant Secretary General status. The spokesperson on Tuesday said that the "audience of this was 105 Assistant Secretaries-General and 85 Under-Secretaries-General, and 92 have elected to" participate. But the UN Protocol and Liaison Service's online "USG / ASG List" identifies only 76 USGs (29 in New York and 47 "away from headquarters") and only 94 ASGs (36 in New York and 58 away from HQ). That is, there are nine unlisted USGs, and 11 unlisted ASGs.
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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