By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, November 30 -- The UN has reversed course and admitted that its officials and staff keep for personal use the frequent flyer miles connected to their official travel paid by the UN.
On November 29, inquiring into the documents released by Wikileaks including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's request that US diplomats seek the frequent flyer miles account numbers of UN officials, Inner City Press asked UN acting Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq, “What does happen with the frequent flyer miles of Ban Ki-moon or other [UN staff] when they fly around?”
Haq replied that “the frequent flyer miles of UN officials are essentially possessions of the United Nations...this is all part of the Organization.”
Since Inner City Press had been told that UN staff keep the frequently flyer miles, and even that top UN envoy in Liberia Ellen Loj was heard yelling at UNMIL's Travel Office about “mismanaging” her frequently flyer miles account, Inner City Press asked Haq again, “can you state, for example, for SRSGs that travel, it goes to the UN or do they keep it personally?”
Haq insisted, “on work that you do for the Organization, this is part and parcel of the Organization... this is held by the Organization.” UN transcript here.
On the evening on November 29, multiple UN staff members contacted Inner City Press to say that what they had heard Haq said, including as reported in Inner City Press' November 29 article, was false. They stated that they kept their miles, that they had never been asked to return them.
On November 30, with no correction having been offered at the noon briefing, Inner City Press pointed back at the November 29 answer and said that many UN staff said different, did Haq wish to correct what he had said?
Haq did not, instead saying that he was awaiting guidance from the UN Ethics Office.
Inner City Press pointed out that what should happen -- the stated purview of the Ethics Office -- and what actually DOES happen are too separate questions. Still, Haq would not answer.
Later on November 30, at precisely the time that November's Security Council president Mark Lyall Grant began speaking at the Council stakeout position, Haq went onto the UN's internal “squawk” system and read out a statement about frequent flyer miles. Since it was impossible to hear, Inner City Press asked him to email what he had read. It followed some minutes later:
From: Farhan Haq <@un.org>
Date: Tue, Nov 30, 2010 at 1:13 PM
Subject: Re: Please email me what you read- am at stakeout
To: Inner City Press
The UN has no policy on frequent flyer miles program because only individuals can accrue them and since they are not transferable, they cannot be recovered or converted by the Organization for official travel. Therefore, using mileage accrued as a result of official travel is not a violation of the Organization’s rules.
Of course, this was not the question asked (and even then, the answer is dubious). What was asked on November 29 was whether UN officials' and staff's frequently flyer miles went back to the UN, and the UN acting Deputy Spokesman twice said yes.
The November 30 statement makes clear that the answer given on November 29 was false. Why not then acknowledge it? On the Wikileaks scandal, Ban Ki-moon was in Kazakhstan saying how transparent the UN is. But is it?
On November 26, when Ban's Spokesperson's Office canceled its noon briefing despite the UN ostensibly being open, Inner City Press asked some questions in writing. Left unanswered four days later are questions about UN payments in Haiti and Sudan, humanitarian access in Sri Lanka, even who sponsored a particular press conference in the UN's briefing room. The Spokesperson's office wouldn't never confirm that Ban's chief of staff was going to Myanmar when he was already there. And: how did he fly?
Meanwhile, it now appears that the current UN Ethics Office under Joan Elise Dubinsky tries to find reasons that seeming misappropriations of UN resources and staff time are acceptable. We will have more on this.
Footnote: while Haq instead of sending Inner City Press the response to the question it asked on November 29 choose to read it out over a broadcast system that only reporters who were NOT at the Security Council stakeout covering the Council President's statements on Somalia and Haiti could hear, his Office put out a written response by UN official Francis Deng purporting to refute “assertions of... the Inner city Press” by name.
Deng's statement, which was only put out once the noon briefing had begun -- such that it could not be read and responded to as Haq summarized it -- ends with the statement that Deng “met with the Director of the Ethics Office on 23 November to seek her advice on these matters. She assured me that she found no basis for concern.” We will have more on all this -- watch this site.
