By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive
UNITED NATIONS, October 28 -- Trying to follow the money at the UN is not easy, often intentionally so. Press questions for example about Secretary General Ban Ki-moon's travel, posed to the head of the Department of Management Yukio Takasu were answered with reference to unnamed Trust Funds which report on a two year lag. A follow up question to Ban's Office of the Spokesperson did not garner any better response.
The Assistant Secretary General position of UN Controller, then, under the supervision of former Japanese Ambassador to the UN Takasu is not unimportant. Back in May 2014 then-Controller Maria Eugenia Casar was picked to become Associate Administrator of the United Nations Development Program.
Now Inner City Press is exclusively informed by well-placed sources that a new Controller has been picked but not yet announced. Amid complaints by some delegations that the US already has too many top positions, from the Department of Political Affairs of Jeffrey Feltman to Ebola logistics czar Tony Banbury and Capital Master Plan master-builder Michael Adlerstein, the sources tell Inner City Press the new UN Controller will be joint US - Uruguay citizen Bettina Bartsiotas.
Bettina Bartsiotas, Inner City Press' research finds, is an active American, for example making $1000 in public campaign contributions and even showing up in aclassified US cable obtained and released by Wikileaks, regarding the International Atomic Energy Agency:
“This position should be pursued aggressively when it opens up in the future. Dual Uruguay/U.S. national Bettina Bartsiotas, currently a Section Head in this office, has a good relationship with the Mission and may seek this position in the future.”
So the US was pushing Bartsiotas for a financial position in the IAEA then, and presumably now, for the UN Controller position. While the UN refuses to make public its “short lists” for such recruitments, the sources exclusively tell Inner City Press of the current UN Treasurer, from Mexico, as well as a Belgian official being interviewed. But, they say, “American Bettina Bartsiotas came out on top.”
As Inner City Press previously reported back in September, another American pick by Ban Ki-moon, Carol Boykin for the investment chief in the UN pension fund, drew significant push-back due to Boykin's past record and litigation in Maryland. And this one? Watch this site.
