By Matthew Russell Lee
www.innercitypress.com/un3kane010810.html
UNITED NATIONS, January 8 -- Two weeks after the UN budget season ended, Management head Angela Kane appeared to tell the Press that the session was "productive," and minimized the significance of reform proposals being shot down.
Inner City Press asked Ms. Kane about the Department of Management's inability to provide information about Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's proposal on continuing contracts, which resulted in the General Assembly keeping the old Staff Rules in place for at least another year.
Ms. Kane argued that it just made more sense to delay the proposal, that it was not possible to provide the information, particularly about peacekeeping. Inner City Press asked, But weren't the questions foreseeable? Wasn't the shoot down akin to, for example, if U.S. President Obama's health care proposal is shelved for a year by the Congress? This, Ms. Kane did not answer.
While the New York Staff Union has complained about asbestos work slated for January 8 on floor on which people are still working, the UN's other unions have written to Mr. Ban to complain about his non-implementation of continuing contracts. See SMCC letter to Mr. Ban, Ms. Migiro, Mr. Nambiar, Ms. Kane, Mr. Kim and Ms. Pollard, obtained by Inner City Press and put online here.
The New York Staff Union complains that Ms. Kane doesn't even respond to their letters. But now the other UN systems unions are complaining too. There is a pattern here.
Similarly, Ms. Kane earlier told the Press that since she has no time to answer questions about how the UN in managed, all questions should be asked in the noon briefing. But then, it appears, the questions are not passed on to her. Meanwhile, Ms. Kane convened a meeting in 2009 about how to fight back against the Press. Now that the UN press corps is being moved directly under the office Ms. Kane has taken up on the Library's third floor, one hopes for more transparency.
Other critiques of the Ban administration and her management, Ms. Kane also dismissed or downplayed on Thursday. The General Assembly now demands a new Under Secretary General post to oversee the UN Office in Nairobi. This was a response to Ban's and Kane's ham handed demotion of Anna Tibaijuka, the African woman previously running Nairobi until replaced by the German Achim Steiner.
The member states push back, but Ban has still not appointed replacement in the Office of the Special Adviser on Africa. Since many Ambassadors are mystified why Ban would "diss" Africa in this way, Inner City Press asked if the post, or the funding, was being applied elsewhere.
Some for example say that the "Bob Orr post" has its funding cobbled together from different streams. Ms. Kane wouldn't say, and also said she was unaware of Inner City Press' question about how Ibrahim Gambari was paid, between the Myanmar and now disappeared Iraq post.
On this, Inner City Press has received confirmation from a well placed UN source that Gambari's salary did come from two missions, one of which got cut. Ms. Kane claims this had nothing to do with Gambari being reassigned to Darfur, but an official on the 38th now 3rd floor tells Inner City Press this was a factor in the Darfur "deus ex macina" for Gambari. Watch this site.
Footnote on discipline and punish: even on discipline, little information was provided. Inner City Press asked for an update on the DESA staffer found guilty in Canada of holding child pornography on his flash drive. Even as of Ms. Kane's appearance on October 15, 2009 in Conference Room 8, he still held his job, which Ms. Kane explained as "due process."
Inner City Press asked on Thursday for an update, but none was provided, nor on the investigation of porn forwarding within the Department of Safety and Security, where the "pre-selected promotions" scandal has yet to be acted on either.
Similarly, on the case of two DSS officers suspended after a KFC Colonel Sanders impersonator was taken to the General Assembly President's office, Ms. Kane could not say when the investigation was finished nor what had happened. It is in the hands of the program manager, she said. Does that mean DSS? Ms. Kane referred to "Mister Starr," Greg Starr, who has yet to hold a press conference. And so it goes at the UN.
And see, www.innercitypress.com/un3kane010810.html
