UN's Budget Committee Complains of Late Reports, Diagnosis of Problems at UN Office of Internal Oversight Services

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un1acabq050508.html

UNITED NATIONS, May 5 -- As the UN budget committee began a month-long set of meetings on Monday, it criticized the Ban Ki-moon administration for providing its proposals late, and not answering its questions. An insider to the UN Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions, in an extended interview with Inner City Press, explained why the UN system is not working. The Secretariat works all twelve months of the year coming up with proposals for funding, he said. Then these are funneled through a seven-month session of the ACABQ, which does not have sufficient time or staff to appropriately report. Then the General Assembly's budget committee, in sessions from September to December, then March and finally May, is expected to seriously review the proposals and reports. This proves impossible, and much review is confined to the final 72 hours of each session. (Click here for Inner City Press' coverage for the dusk to dawn budget session in late December.)

ACABQ must be given better information and resources, he said, and the budget committee must meet more frequently. The UN's budgets have skyrocketed, while the oversight as not. See today's story on the problems at the UN's Office of Internal Oversight Services. The insider opined that OIOS' proposal to shift investigators from peacekeeping missions to regional centers is not yet well thought out, and may not pass in its current form.

These perspectives found their way into some of the speeches given on Monday in the Fifth Committee. For the Group of 77 and China, Conrod Hunt began, "It is regrettable that we once again have to register our concern with the late submission of reports by the Secretariat." He continued that "while the size of the peacekeeping budgets of the UN have increased significantly over the past few years, Member States, however, are put in a position where they have less and less time each year to complete our consideration... The ACABQ has not been able to prepare reports except on five peacekeeping operations so far."

Inner City Press last week asked OIOS chief Inga-Britt Ahlenius for an update on OIOS' action on the General Assembly's call, in December 2007, for her to examine the Secretariat's invocation of "special measures" allowing no-bid contracting, including the $250 million contract with Lockheed Martin's PA&E unit, and waiving hiring rules in the Darfur mission. She replied, "OIOS does not make any comments on our ongoing work other than to say that the audit is still in progress and will be submitted to the GA in accordance with the slot date." Here's hoping the Budget Committee follows-up. We'll see.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1acabq050508.html