By Matthew Russell Lee
UNITED NATIONS, March 26 -- Nearly two weeks after Inner City Press asked Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's Office of the Spokesperson about complaints in Nigeria about people there paying for rebuilding the UN House after it was bombed, there had still been no answer.
So Inner City Press asked again on March 25, and today an answer arrived.
This was the questions asked by Inner City Press at 8 am on March 13:
-On Nigeria, what is the UN Secretary General's or Secretariat's response to the the Nigerian group WON saying the UN should refund the $30 million given it by the Nigerian government for reconstruction of its building that was bombed by Boko Haram? To help you answer:
Emmanuel Ogebe of WON said: “We are asking that the UN should refund the N 4billion because we believe that an international organization of that class should have the resources to fix the building. The fact of the matter is that Nigeria should not foot the bill of an international organization funded by all countries of the world and then, poor people who have nothing will loose their houses, churches and the Nigerian government will not provide for them. It is only obligatory that Nigeria pays its dues, and we have even gone far to provide peace keeping troops. We have paid our dues even with the lives of some officers, and now we have an atrocity like this, instead of the UN to take care of the building and allow us have resources to take care of ourselves... We ask the UN Secretary General to refund the $30 million into a Victim Compensation Fund that would assist victims of the insurgent.”
This is not (yet?) litigation: what is the UN Secretariat's response?
This question was not answered; then on March 25 the UN announced that Deputy Secretary General Jan Eliasson would be in Nigeria. So Inner City Press asked:
Inner City Press: I wanted to ask you a question that I had asked a couple weeks ago, in writing, which is that at least one NGO (non-governmental organization) there, they claim that the rebuilding of the Nigeria House after the Boko Haram attack was paid entirely by the Government, $30 million. And they’re saying this is unfair and is not how it’s done elsewhere, like, for example, this building here is not all paid by the US. So they were saying that this money should be refunded to Nigerians because there are many actual victims of Boko Haram who are not receiving any compensation from the Government. So, I wanted to know: is that the case? How was the reconstruction of the building funded, and what would be the response of the UN system to a Nigerian NGO saying that it’s not being done fairly?
Deputy Spokesperson Farhan Haq: Well, first of all, I don’t know whether that’s a fact, so first we’ll have to check what the funding is, and we’ll try to get back to you on that.
Twenty two hours later, with Eliasson in Nigeria, the following was provided:
Subject: Your question on the UN House in Nigeria
From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Date: Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 10:41 AM
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com
From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply [at] un.org
Date: Wed, Mar 26, 2014 at 10:41 AM
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com
The UN House in Abuja was built by the Federal Government and donated to the United Nations System.
After the 26 August 2011 attack on the UN House, the Federal Government pledged to reconstruct the building.
The Federal Government, in fulfilment of its pledge, started phase one of the rehabilitation, which is about 60% complete.
Whether that answers the critique, we'll let readers decide. Still unanswered, among other questions, is this one:
-While still requesting response with regard to Mr. Roed-Larsen, Mr. Joseph V. Reed et al, here is a more systematic question:
Has the SG yet prepared the guidelines required by Resolution 67/255? Following the GA's decision on $1/year contracts in April 2013, how many individuals currently have $1/year contracts, and who are they?
To assist your answer:
A/RES/67/255, 73rd plenary meeting 12 April 2013 e, excerpt
...63. Stresses that one-dollar-a-year contracts should be granted only under exceptional circumstances and be limited to high-level appointments, and requests the Secretary-General to prepare guidelines regarding the use of these contracts, along the same lines of those established for when-actually-employed appointments, and to report thereon, in the context of his next overview report, to the General Assembly at the main part of its sixty-ninth session;
We are still waiting. A flier the Free UN Coalition for Accessposted on this topic, on the "non-UNCA" bulletin board it advocated for, was torn down on March 7. FUNCA put it back up. But of the two different FUNCA fliers up, now one of the two has been removed.
It is a new era, requiring a new approach.
