Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/cmp1uncovered050709.html
UNITED NATIONS, May 7 -- As the UN spends billions of dollars on renovations with a general contractor Skanska embroiled in litigation about mishandling asbestos, its Capital Master Plan director Michael Adlerstein through his spokesman on Monday ordered security officers to eject a reporter from a “Town Hall Meeting” about the CMP. Adlerstein is under fire for having claimed that the litigation against Skanska doesn't exist, and for the claim that required Security Risk Assessments were either not required or were already done. In a letter delivered May 5, but dated April 23, Adlerstein acknowledged that the Security Risk Assessment are belatedly being done, to be finished, he wrote, by the end of June.
At Thursday meeting, senior UN Security officials arrived late at 1:45 pm. They are waiting for you, another officer told them. It is said that Adlerstein is trying to explain his own mis-statement by laying the entire blame on the UN Safety and Security Service, specifically on Bruno Henn.
In the brief portion of the meeting observed by this reporter prior to the ejection directed by Adlerstein's spokesman Werner Schmidt, Adlerstein narrated a slide about the reduction in service in the UN cafeteria. Monday, workers in the cafeteria complained to Inner City Press that they that day received notice of layoffs starting on August 2, with no relocation or retraining. They contrasts this treatment at the UN to what governments around the world are going during the financial crisis.
These issues, and the CMP, are overseen by the UN Department of Management, headed by Angela Kane, who is being questioned by staff and even member states these days on issues ranging from irregularities in the UN Medical Service she oversees through now triple confirmed attempts to keep her unit inside the UN compound during the CMP and force other units to move twice, to the suspension of the National Competitive Exam, one of the few merit-based ways that applicants from under-represented countries can work for the UN.
A well-placed UN staff member on Thursday told Inner City Press that since Germany is over-represented, it and Angela Kane, who he called a German national, favor the suspension of the NCE. Another said that when Germans took the test, their over-representation led to throwing out of some results. Another has chimed in noting that there are over 400 people "on the roster." But the reality is, hirings and "regularization" are being done for those hired outside the NCE, from the field.
Ms. Kane has said she has no time to answer questions, that all these should be asked at the UN's noon briefing. There, however, a limitation on the number of questions that can be asked appears to be in place.
Even so, at the noon briefing of May 6, Inner City Press asked
Inner City Press: a letter has emerged from Mr. Adlerstein of the Capital Master Plan confirming something that had been earlier, I think, denied by the Secretariat that these security risk assessments that were supposed to be produced for the swing spaces and for this building, in fact have not been produced. But now they claim they will be done by the end of June. What’s the explanation of the earlier statement that these were either done or were not necessary? And there is a reference to the CEB meeting of 4 April in one of the letters. Can you confirm that this issue came up and how does this impact...[interrupted]?
Spokesperson: I cannot confirm it at this point. I can ask, of course, Mr. Adlerstein to answer your question.
More than 24 hours later, no answer had been provided. And then Adlerstein through his spokesman had UN Security eject the Press from covering his "Town Hall" meeting.
News analysis: While Adlerstein, Kane and the UN's Ban Ki-moon administration have claimed to be transparent, the ejection of Press trying to cover essentially public comments about the billions of dollars the UN is proposing to spend is a new low. Watch this site.
Update of 1:58 p.m. -- as another UN correspondent has said, since the Capital Master Plan impacts everyone who works here, including the press, it is particularly inappropriate to close the CMP "town hall" meeting to the press who work here....
Update of 2:16 p.m., still outside the meeting room -- given his CMP chief's exclusion of the Press from a meeting the sign for which didn't even say "Closed," it seems more than a little ironic that earlier on May 7 -- and May 6 on Park Avenue -- Ban Ki-moon praised the press, and even "bloggers," for "holding authorities to account."
Update of 2:29 p.m. -- it emerges that even though the UN has not done the Security Risk Assessments, it has already moved staff to 380 Madison Avenue, starting on April 27...
And see, www.innercitypress.com/cmp1uncovered050709.html
