In Corrupt UN of Guterres UNESCO Cronies Responsible for the Mess are expected by New DG to Fix It

In Corrupt UN of Guterres UNESCO Cronies Responsible for the Mess are expected by New DG to Fix It By Matthew Russell Lee & sources, Exclusive UN GATE, April 15 – UNESCO, like the whole UN system under Antonio Guterres is falling apart in corruption and fraud. Inner City Press has been reporting for years on the serious malfeasance by the French Audrey Azoulay administration at UNESCO in Paris, almost as bad as Antonio Guterres' corruption in and of the UN in New York. A fish rots from the head. In recent years, Inner City Press has revealed the alarming situation of the Paris-based UN agency, headed by Frenchwoman Audrey Azoulay from 2017 to 2025, when the Egyptian former Minister Khaled El-Enany got the DG’s position.  His election had raised high hopes. Even today, both the Secretariat and the Member States expect him to live up to those expectations. Time is passing, and yet nothing has changed in the corridors of power, which remain in the hands of Audrey Azoulay’s former cronies. Left alone with his illusions, the Egyptian Director-General clearly believes he can manage UNESCO’s affairs alongside the very people who caused the problems, and even counts on them to move the Organization forward. Such a misjudgment cannot be attributed solely to naivety.  How many more blunders must still be revealed before the Director-General of UNESCO—who is no longer all that new—decides to consider and take decisive corrective measures, without wasting any more time hesitating and compromising with these advisors who are inclined to maintain the influence of France and the EU through the senior officials recruited by Audrey Azoulay.  To set the record straight: never in UNESCO’s history, since the Organization’s founding, and never within the UN as a whole, has a newly elected Director-General retained the main players of the previous leadership team. Never. Period. And if this immediate change of the key members has always happened, it was for a reason. It was for a purpose. Most of the problems and bad decisions inherited by the new administration had been devised and imposed by those very senior officials who were, naturally, replaced.  But not this time at UNESCO. The group of people around whom power continues to revolve—and whose every day spent in their offices further undermines the credibility and authority of UNESCO’s new Director-General—includes the Director of the Director-General’s Cabinet, Margaux Bergeon-Dars; the Director of IOS, Bernardin Assiene; the Director of Legal Affairs, Santiago Villalpando, and the Assistant Director-General for Administration and Management, Jennifer Linkins.  The day these four people are fired by El-Enany, member states will be able to consider that his true tenure as Director-General has begun. Until then, it’s the same old story, and if anyone is to be held responsible, it is indeed the Egyptian Director-General, as well as the Egyptian authorities in Cairo, which allows him to lead while making easily avoidable mistakes.  Last week, all the facts that Inner City Press has reported on were implicitly corroborated by ADG Linkins, who, before the Executive Board, in a pathetic attempt to save her job, stated that she regretted the lack of transparency and that they should have listened more to the governing bodies. This simple acknowledgment of the mistakes made by the previous administration, as detailed in the JIU report reviewed by the Board during this session, should have been sufficient to terminate Ms. Linkins’ contract.  But the Egyptian DG isn't there yet. He hasn't reached the point where difficult decisions are to be made. Let’s hope he reaches that stage soon. Jennifer Linkins has demonstrated dishonesty on numerous occasions, even after the election of the Egyptian Director-General. In the midst of a severe financial crisis, she continued to implement the promotions granted by Azoulay that the Egyptian DG wished to suspend. It will be interesting to seek explanations regarding the failure to comply with the new Director-General’s instructions and the granting of a promotion, for example, to the assistant in the Human Resources Bureau, Jennifer Brunner, at the P-2 level, while most ADGs assistants are at the G-7 level. Only the IOS can uncover what lies behind all this, but only with a different director overseeing the investigation. Director Assiene will certainly see no problem with the failure to follow El-Enany’s instructions, since he’s in the same vein.  The same observation that it’s but time to leave the Agency therefore applies to the Director of IOS, Bernardin Assiene. Following the UIS scandal—which he tried in vain to cover up with the former Assistant Director-General for Management, Nick Jeffreys, who was dismissed for several serious offenses—it is unclear why the Director of IOS remains in his position. This scandal involved complaints filed by staff members against the Director of the UNESCO Institute for Statistics, based in Canada. After paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages for moral damage, it was entirely appropriate that the three senior officials directly involved in mismanaging the complaints be duly dismissed. This is, in fact, what happened to two of them: the UIS Director and the Assistant Director-General for Management were dismissed as a result. But the third, Bernardin Assiene, is still at UNESCO, advising the Director-General on staff misconduct, proposing sanctions against certain staff members, and playing the nice guy with Member States. When will Director-General El-Enany clean this mess and bring some order to UNESCO and realize that it is not possible to keep Assiene on his team?  The Director-General must acknowledge a fact: Assiene is part of the scheme that led to the error responsible for the spending of a large portion of taxpayers’ money in compensation for bad management. Consequently, keeping him in his position amounts to rewarding mismanagement and reprehensible conduct.  Is this the image the new DG wishes to project? Certainly not, yet this is precisely the impression he gives: that of a weak and indecisive leader who deliberately sweeps the Azoulay dirt under his Egyptian rug.  The same goes for his Director of Cabinet. Due to her religious orientations, the lady has always vehemently opposed Arabs and, under Azoulay, did not hesitate to express this clearly in writing on her Twitter account. Since the Egyptian’s election, most of the tweets have been conveniently deleted, but Inner City Press has preserved some for the record.  It is even easier to get rid of Director LA. The number of cases lost before the Geneva Tribunal due to his incompetence and his obedience to Azoulay’s whims, the fact that he appointed his wife to a P-5 position at UNESCO against the rules, the fact that most of the advice given to the governing bodies was contradicted when confronted with the expert legal counsel of experienced diplomats and ambassadors—all of this makes him eligible for the fast-track sacking.  Let’s put it bluntly: there is sufficient evidence of misconduct and wrongdoing on the part of all four for the Director-General to easily show them the door.  In memoriam, Altay Cengizer, former Ambassador of Turkey and President of the General Conference passed away last week. He could have been a great source of inspiration for the Egyptian DG.  We wrote about his bold diplomatic actions on several occasions. For those interested in how a true President of the main governing body should conduct himself, the content of our articles will serve as an illustration . The letter sent on February 2, 2021 to all Permanent Delegates to UNESCO is a striking example (here ).   UNESCO Letter, another scoop by Inner City Press banned from UN by Guterres. The circular letter sent off, on 2nd February, to 193 member states by Altay Cengizer drew the attention of member states to the importance of respecting existing rules and practices. It whistled the end of the pre-electoral games by the French DG. As a consequence, the ambassadors, involved in the discreditable arrangements in her favor, felt badly exposed. Furthermore, in another letter dated April 8, 2021, addressed to all member states with permanent delegations to UNESCO, Altay Cengizer strongly emphasized that he was acting within the framework of his prerogatives as “custodian of the Constitution”. One can only hope that the current Chairs of the governing bodies will demonstrate an equally high degree of diplomacy, honesty, courage, and unwavering commitment to UNESCO’s ideals.  This is where UNESCO stands today. We will have more on that. Watch this site. *** Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com Past (and future?) UN Office: S-303, UN, NY 10017 USA For now: Box 20047, Dag Hammarskjold Station NY NY 10017 Reporter's mobile (and weekends): 718-716-3540  Search innercitypress.com  Search WWW (censored?) Other, earlier Inner City Press are listed here, and some are available in the ProQuest service, and now on Lexis-Nexis.  Copyright 2006-2020 Inner City Press, Inc. 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