By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, June 1 -- Two departments of the UN are fighting over which gets 12 posts or salaries lines.
No one in Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's office has intervened and made a deicsion, and so the two departments offer favors to particular member states to get their support in the Budget Committee.
Welcome to dysfunction in Ban Ki-moon's UN.
No less than the UN Journal reported that the Fifth (Budget) Committee would finish its work on May 31. But that morning, when Inner City Press asked the Committee's chairperson Miguel Berger of Germany if that would happen, he candidly said, "No."
At 5 pm on Friday Inner City Press checked in with several members of the Committee. Some were derisive of the UAV plan of UN Peacekeeping chief Herve "The Drone" Ladsous for Cote d'Ivoire.
But a big fight concerned a proposed power-grab by UN Controller Maria Eugenia Casar "and her peacekeeping budget director."
The Department of Field Support and the Department of Management, of which the Controller's office is part, were tasked with finding a new way to draft peacekeeping budgets.
This, multiple sources told Inner City Press, was turned into a "power grab" by Casar, who "made DFS give up twelve posts," and transferred them to her office.
DFS understandably pushed back; in typically dysfunctional UN fashion the two Departments are now using different member states - in exchange for favor, of course - to press forward their position in the Fifth Committee. Is this any way to run an Organization?
Meanwhile, apparently to try to avoid detailed press coverage, one thing the UN says it will stand firm on is eliminating media workspace that has existed for years in front of the Security Council. Both before and during the $2 billion renovation (after which there is STILL bad wiring), there was a media table in front of the Security Council.
But now, despite being shown as recently as May 31 by the Free UN Coalition for Access exactly where one could go, the UN is saying no. Or is letting the move of the Security Council, today, happen without maintaining previous media access. This is Ban's UN.
