By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, August 2 -- Returns to the UN Headquarters tower have been less than smooth, after a rehabilitation which Inner City Press showed featured massive cost overruns. UN staff have exclusively complained to Inner City Press of getting stuck in the "renovated" elevators, about uncontrollable window blinds which leaves the offices overheated, and now about a lack of drinking water.
According to staff, after bad-tasting water was repeatedly noted, the UN shut down the system and ordered water coolers to be trucked in and taken upstairs. All this while yet more staff are slated to move in this coming weekend.
"Where did all the money go?" a staff member demanded to know. "Two billion dollars for this?"
The UN's Fifth (budget) Committee, now slated to be taken over by a Sri Lankan diplomat named in Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's report on war crimes in that country, has until now raised numerous questions about cost overruns in the Capital Master Plan, run by American Michael Adlerstein.
The US quietly let the UN keep tens of millions of dollars in so-called Tax Equalization Funds, but for securing the Conference Rooms over the East River. But no drinkable water? Watch this site.
