Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/dm1kane052109.html
JFK Airport, May 21, updated May 26 – The range of questionable management practices at the UN were on display Thursday, as Department of Management chief Angela Kane belated came to field questions from the Press. Inner City Press asked her around millions of dollars the UN mis-payed to military contractor Lockheed Martin in Darfur, about a pornography scandal that continues to reverberate in the UN, and about her Department's retaliation against staff member they quick provided information about unlicensed distribution of Valium and controlled substances by the UN Medical Service.
On the pornography scandal, she claimed that all of those implicated have been disciplined, noting that five views are different than five hundred. This was just after she was asked about the Wall Street Journal's expose of the UN's mishandling of sexual harassment cases.
Two of these three questions, Ms. Kane referred to others. On the report that the UN paid $4.3 to Lockheed's PA&E subsidiary for construction services, at a time no construction took place, she said to “ask Susana Malcorra,” the head of the Department of Field Services. She said that the Secretariat disagrees with the findings of the UN's own Office of Internal Oversight Services.
Then, she said to ask the head of OIOS, Inga Britt Ahlenius, about a non-public report she says cleared the Medical Service of wrongdoing. Ahlenius hasn't answered Press questions for months, and Kane could not commit to making the report purportedly clearing the “doctors” public, despite chiding the Press for not reporting on it. (Kane is known to be asking the Office of Legal Affairs to make publications print the UN's position, even if based on reports the UN withholds.)
She said of course US licenses are required by those in the Medical Service, and some countries only require a single lifetime license, never renewed. She denied that US authorities are looking into the matter. We'll see.
Update: On May 26, Inner City Press received the following
From: unspokesperson-donotreply@un.org
To: matthew.lee@innercitypress.com
Sent: 5/26/2009 1:45:29 P.M. Eastern Standard Time
In response to your recent news story on the Medical Service, we are transmitting the following information provided by OIOS:
In response to media reports claiming that ga group of largely unlicensed doctors and nurses are dispensing and in some cases taking and self-medicating with Valium, Diazepam, Demerol, Ambien and other controlled narcoticsh at the UN, the Office for Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) informed us that the facts need to be correctly stated.
The Office informed us that a complainant had reported to OIOS about possible abuse in the management and dispensation of controlled substances in the Medical Services Division (MSD) of the United Nations. OIOS immediately assigned two investigators to conduct preliminary inquiries into this report.
Based upon the information obtained, OIOS confirmed that the Medical Services Division does have a process in place to ensure safe custody and dispensation of controlled substances.
OIOS concluded its preliminary inquiries and determined that the complainant's claims about the abuse of the dispensation of controlled substances in the MSD could not be verified. It adds that a fully conclusive verification can only be obtained upon a full investigation. This would require review of confidential medical records, to which OIOS does not have access.
Is this what the UN means by exonerated -- that it creates "rules" that preclude its supposedly independent investigative unit from verifying a whistleblower's allegations which are backed up by photographic and other evidence?
