By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, March 7 -- As the UN dodges questions about its finances from Inner City Press, information emerged Wednesday about large undisclosed cost overruns in its nearly $2 billion Capital Master Plan.
Meanwhile, the Japanese official vying to take over the Department of Management from Angela Kane may be former Permanent Representative Yukio Takasu, Inner City Press has learned.
The chief of CMP Michael Adlerstein brags about his value engineering, reducing the CMP deficit down to "two digits... some $80 million" - but only because the associated costs including fixtures necessary to move into the building have been swept under the rug until the very end.
When these costs become known, including the fact that they cannot be "absorbed" by the various Un departments, "finance ministries will scream," a well placed source told Inner City Press.
Meanwhile there's said to be behind the scenes screaming not only about Inner City Press' scoop that Maurice Strong, who left the UN amid Oil for Food and nepotism scandals, is back as a "Senior Adviser" on Rio + 20, but also about the possibility that Atul Khare of India may be given the Department of Field Support post being vacated on April 1 by Susana Malcorra as she becomes Ban Ki-moon's chief of staff. From elsewhere in South Asia come complaints.
But there is apparently no memory at the UN. Case in point: Grid Rroji, an energetic UN tour guide who started work for Albania's government while still paid by the UN until exposed by Inner City Press, is now back in the UN system, at UN Women. It's like Maurice Strong: people can just return, it's a very forgiving (or forgetful) organization, even as it preaches "accountability" around the world....
