By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, December 29 -- While the UN had said that the Southern Sudan referendum slated for January 9 is a major priority, the UN has stopped answering media questions about it.
The UN Department of Political Affairs told non-governmental organizations that it expects the polling to be delayed or extended, Inner City Press is informed, and that results will not be available until at least February 2.
Meanwhile the UN system is embroiled in a corruption inquiry in Sudan, about which the UN in New York has not answered questions. Inner City Press has formally asked Ban Ki-moon's top two spokespeople about
“a confidential UN report as disclosing that some 50 UN experts working for the DDR program in south Sudan had received exorbitant salaries of 14 million US dollars... some UN experts had received salaries of fake names that do not exist in the UN payroll... The official in charge of coordinating the DDR program with the UN in Sudan, Osman Nuri, on Tuesday claimed that the UN had only released 39.967.380 out of 105.068.169 US dollars provided by the donors for the DDR program...Nuri, further recounted that the official in charge of coordinating the DDR program in south Sudan, William Deng, has noticed that enormous amounts of money were being spent outside the purview of the program. Nuri said that these two facts made the government suspicious that the UN was abusing donors’ fund.”
On December 23, UN acting Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq said that he was canceling the regular noon briefings, but that top spokesman Martin Nesirky would answer questions. But throughout this week, Nesirky and Haq have provided no answers at all to Inner City Press' questions about Sudan and other UN topics formally submitted to them.
On December 29, after Inner City Press asked for an explanation, Nesirky replied that answers would be provided that day. But at close of business at 4:50 pm on December 29, no answers at all have been provided. Watch this site.
