Publication: Independent Online Issued: Date: 2007-01-25 Reporter: Joe Lauria

Fakie to Probe Embezzled UN Funds

 

Publication 

Independent Online

Date

2007-01-25

Reporter

 Joe Lauria

Web Link

www.iol.co.za

 

New York - Shauket Fakie, South Africa's former auditor-general, will be part of a three-man investigation into allegations that the UN Development Programme (UNDP) may have illicitly diverted $100-million (about R713-million) to the North Korean government.

UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon has ordered the UN Panel of External Auditors to investigate all activities of UN funds and programmes in Africa and throughout the world following the US charges against the UNDP.

Fakie is one of three members of the UN external auditors board, along with the auditors-general of France and the Philippines *1. His six-year term runs until 2012.

Fakie will take part in what Ban is calling an "urgent, system-wide and external inquiry into all activities *1 done around the globe by the UN funds and programmes".

This will include a probe into the practices of every UN agency, including many with extensive operations in Africa, such as the Children's Fund, the World Food Programme, the High Commissioner for Refugees and the Population Fund. According to the UNDP, about 50 percent of spending on core programmes is on the African continent.

The probe is to be concluded by the September opening of the next General Assembly.

Ban ordered the inquiry after the US alleged that as much as $100-million (about R713-million) in hard currency had been paid to the government of North Korea over the past 10 years by the UNDP for development projects over which the UNDP had little or no oversight.

North Korea chose which employees worked for the UN, UNDP cash was paid directly to the government, not to the employees, and on-site inspections of projects were often not carried out, yielding no proof the money went to the projects at all, the US alleged.

"Unfortunately, because of the actions of the North Korea government and the complicity of the UNDP, at least since 1998, the UNDP programme has been systematically perverted for the benefit of the Kim Jong Il regime - rather than the people of North Korea," wrote Mark Wallace, the deputy US ambassador for management at the UN, in a letter last week to Ad Melkert, the UNDP's associate administrator.

With acknowledgements to Joe Lauria and Independent Online.


*1       It's like having the mice looking after the cheese.

I think the authorities at the UN need to know how Thabo Mbeki and his Arms Deal gabbas so easily got Fakie to change his draft Arms Deal report to be acceptable to the government.

What can we expect from the auditors-general of France and the Philippines - Did you say France?