Saturday, October 25, 2008

As UN's Ban Tries to Lead Reform, 36 Officials and 172 Staff Say No , Mobility Stalled


Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/ban1unreformed100708.html

UNITED NATIONS, October 7 -- Speaking publicly at last about UN reform, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Tuesday said his idea of moving staff from job to job is to stimulate creative, a "fresh wind at the UN," as he called it. But he has a long way to go to sell this plan. Several of his Under Secretary Generals have told Inner City Press they oppose the idea. People with expertise, one USG asked Inner City Press on October 6, why should we send them to an entirely different job? It brought to mind Ban's complaint in his speech to this and other officials in Turin, that he tried to lead by example but no one followed.

The same applied, despite Ban's protests, to public financial disclosure. While at his October 7 press conference Ban claimed that compliance has been high, the most recent report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers shows that while in 2006 only 34 UN staff refused to submit financial disclosures, in 2007 under Ban Ki-moon, the number of non-compliant staff grew to 172. Click here to see the Report. To see Ban's claim to the contrary, video here.

In asking questions about UN reform, over the objections of Ban's spokesperson, Inner City Press said it is to Ban's credit that he made a public financial disclosure, how ever minimal. But while he called on other senior UN system officials to follow his lead, an updated review by Inner City Press on October 7 found that of 105 top officials, fully 36 declined to make any public financial disclosure. The names of these non-disclosers may be surprising to some.

The following officials chose not to follow Ban's lead, click to view their statements that "I have chosen not to disclose the information" --

And see, www.innercitypress.com/ban1unreformed100708.html
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