Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un1findisclosed012908.html
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.
Even limiting the analysis to those senior officials listed by the UN's protocol service, following the UN spokesperson's public explanation on Tuesday, over 90 of these senior officials did not consent to disclose their decision to maintain confidentiality. Limiting ourselves for now to the non-reporters based in New York -- on the theory that it has taken longer to get the message out to the field -- those USGs based in New York who have by Spokesperson Okabe's logic not even consented to disclose their decision to maintain confidentiality include:
Thoraya Obaid, the USG head of the UN Population Fund; Jeffrey Sachs, USG advisor on Millennium Development Goals; Cheick Sidi Diarra, who holds two separate USG titles; Susan McLurg, the new head of ACABQ; Joseph Verner Reed, special adviser USG; Kingston Rhodes, USG chairman of the International Civil Service Commission; Wolfgang Stoeckl, USG vice-chairman of the International Civil Service Commission; Ibrahim Gambari, USG envoy for Iraq and Myanmar, currently in India.
UN Assistant Secretaries General based in New York who have by Spokesperson Okabe's logic not even consented to disclose their decision to maintain confidentiality include: Omar Abdi, ASG deputy at UNICEF; Catherine Bragg, ASG for humanitarian affairs; Choi Soon-hong, ASG for technology; Katherine Cravero-Kristoffersson, ASG at UNDP (who past deadline UNDP claims has filed, but is still not on the list); Francis Deng, ASG on genocide; Sylvia Fuhrman, ASG at UN International School; Dieter Goethel, ASG on Staff Management Committee; Rebeca Grynspan, ASG at UNDP for Latin America; Saad Houry, ASG at UNICEF; Hilde Johnson, another ASG at UNICEF; Kwame S. Jomo, ASG at DESA; Angela Kane, ASG for Political Affairs; Purnima Mane, ASG deputy at UNFPA; Haile Kenkerios, ASG for political affairs; Dmitry Titov, ASG for Peacekeeping and rule of law; Warren Sach, ASG Controller (another who did not respond to a request for explanation); and Edmond Mulet, ASG deputy for peacekeeping, who wrote to Inner City Press on Wednesday that "I am not certain what you are referring to, since I made my financial report long time ago. I am now traveling and unable to answer your queries but I will ask my colleagues in NY to follow-up with you." The on-the-road response was appreciated, but no follow-up was received.
Inner City Press asked Ban's deputy spokesperson Marie Okabe on Tuesday for Ban's reaction to this pervasive non-filing. Ms. Okabe read out a note that "available on that website that we mentioned [earlier] is the current list of those UN officials who have elected to provide a public summary of their disclosure." Watch this site.
