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U.N. Coming Cleaner? Ban Ki-Moon Presses Top Officials on Corruption Probes, Wants Less Public Disclosure

By George Russell

Fox News

May 20, 2008

Beset by scandals surrounding the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has decided to tighten the reins on anti-corruption and ethics investigations across his sprawling organization — even while trying to keep those investigation results from the general public.

The decision by Ban marks a major reversal of course from less than a year ago, when he announced that the U.N. Secretariat "does not enjoy the jurisdiction" over protection of whistle-blowers who expose wrongdoing at UNDP, the U.N.'s development arm, or other agencies in the labyrinthine U.N. system.

At the time, a broad spectrum of U.N. reformers complained that Ban had ceded those powers, as well as the management of anti-corruption probes, to UNDP and its sister agencies, turning a unified anti-corruption system into a jumble of potential conflicts of interest and differing standards.

Since then, UNDP has been hit with a variety of other scandals — including a FOX News investigation last month into UNDP's procurement of $2.3 million worth of airport scanners for the customs service of the radical Chavez government of Venezuela, which the U.S. manufacturer of the equipment said it never shipped.

Yet another important scandal surfaced last week, when a UNDP whistle-blower demanded an investigation by Ban's Secretariat into UNDP support for a Somali financial company with ties to terrorist organizations on the U.N.'s own sanctions list. The whistle-blower, Ahmed Ismael, claims that he was fired after bringing the issue to UNDP's attention. (A UNDP spokesman told news agencies, "Clearly UNDP takes all these allegations extremely seriously and we are in fact investigating them thoroughly.)

In the midst of all the controversy, Ban told a meeting of top-level U.N. officials in Switzerland three weeks ago that he has suddenly seen the wisdom of a single set of standards in those sensitive areas, at least when it comes to the U.N. investigating itself.

A copy of Ban's talking points for the April 28 meeting was obtained by FOX News.

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