Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN
www.innercitypress.com/undp1panel060208.html
UNITED NATIONS, June 2 -- As the UN Development Program prepared put its gloss on a report by Hungarian prime minister Miklos Nemeth, in a hastily called press conference by UNDP Administrator Kemal Dervis, questions arose about the irregularities that the report confirms, in places begrudgingly. As so often happens at the UN, these confirmations are buried deep in the report. A wire service emphasized that the report "concluded that [Tony] Shkurtaj's claims of retaliation are without merit. As a contract employee he could not have been fired, it was just that his contract was not renewed, it said."
But UNDP formally selected and notified Shkurtaj of his selection and hiring for a full-time UNDP staff position as UNDP's North Korea operation manager, out of a total of 174 applications and a finalist list of 29 applicants. (Click here
The Panel conducted "[a] review of documentation related to the Selected Projects budgets" and concluded that "[f]or 77 transactions (74%) the available supporting documentation was insufficient to determine whether the ultimate beneficiary is consistent with the payee name indicated in the financial system (pg 158).
"38% of disbursements made by UNDP-DPRK" were to DPRK "government agencies" which constituted 11 of the top 20 of all payees and totaled $9.13 million (pg 100-101). This analysis does not even include "disbursements made on behalf of UNDP-North Korea by UNDP country offices and other UN agencies" which totaled in the range of $33.3 million -- $48.5 million (pg 118). If at the same percentage payment rate to the DPRK government, then an additional $1 2.65 million to $18.43 million was paid directly to the DPRK government as part of the UNDP DPRK program.
The Panel's review of the most sensitive items - those the Panel classifies as Level I and II -- exported by UNDP to North Korea focused on 151 pieces of equipment and found that 95 items were "classified as being on the Commerce Control List.... [and] would have required a licensee from the U.S. Commerce Department for export or re-export to the DPRK"? (pg. 210) The Panel found many such items were "controlled by the U.S. for national security and anti-terrorism reasons.... and were of heightened concern" (pg. 213).
"At the suspension of the UNDP program in the DPRK in March of 2007, the UNPD transferred a large amount of equipment in closed projects to agencies in the DPRK government.... [and] to the extent that this equipment included U.S.-origin items, the UNDP's retransfer to the DPRK government of U.S.-origin items subject to U.S. license requirements would likely be considered by the U.S. to contravene its export policies prevailing at the time" (pg. 215-216).
Assistant Secretary General for Legal Affairs Larry Johnson reportedly opined to UNDP that UNDP required a "retransfer authorization" from the U.S. to transfer the equipment to the DPRK or other third parties and that UNDP did not obtain any such "retransfer authorization" prior to transferring these items to the DPRK government (pg. 220). But what did the UN's Office of Legal Affairs, of which Larry Johnson is the Deputy, do about this?
The Panel concluded "that in the course of his duties and areas of oversight, Shkurtaj in fact reported conduct and facts about UNDP operations in the DPRK that required resolution and may well have been in violation of UNDP policies as well as applicable agreements with the DPRK" (pg. 312).
The Panel noted a "management lapse" in UNDP's handling of the counterfeit currency (pg. 269). The Panel "noted discrepancies" in the accounts that UNDP Comptroller Darshak Shah gave to the Panel regarding the counterfeit currency issue (pg. 267) What action will be taken against Mr. Shah for his inconsistent statements to the Panel?
And see, www.innercitypress.com/undp1panel060208.html
