| On UNGA Day 1
Khalilur Rahman Talks Trust But
Hides Who Pays His Staff and
Bans Press
by
Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book
Substack UN
GATE / SDNY, Sept 22 – For this
2026 UN General Assembly, the
last of Antonio Guterres'
desultory tenure, Inner City
Press banned
by Guterres applied
on July 25 to re-enter and
cover the speeches and section
of next UNSG. No response. On
September 20 UN Spokesperson
Stephane Dujarric had Inner
City Press removed even from a
Zoom briefing, video here. New PGA Khalilur
Rahman
has done nothing, despite a
request. So
Inner City Press will cover it
from the gate. Khalilur Rahman
September 22 speech (he was
many speechwriters but it is
not clear who pays them)
was built around a
single word: trust. "Trust is not
given. It is earned," he told
the Hall, calling for an
Assembly "bold enough to
reform" and pledging to
"unlock the doors of the UN"
to outside scrutiny — "not
someday. Now." But on a concrete
transparency question about
his own office, the doors have
stayed shut, and his own
office's numbers show why that
matters. Rahman's speech
leaned hardest on money. "Dues
to the United Nations come
from hardworking people around
the world," he said. "Every
penny must therefore be
properly accounted for. Every
penny must be invested to
achieve impact on the ground."
Inner City Press
has repeatedly asked his
office a direct question in
that same spirit: which
members of his 40-person staff
are paid through the UN's
regular budget, funded
collectively by all 193 member
states, and which are paid or
seconded through voluntary,
government-specific
contributions. No answer has
come.
Now it
brags about
nationalities — "29
nationalities," "5/5 regional
groups represented" — which
answers where each staffer is
from, not who pays them, a
distinction the office's own
Trust Fund page confirms is
real: as of September 10, ten
governments have pledged
$1,288,237 specifically "in
support of the Office of the
President," separate from the
UN's general budget. Ignoring outright
secondment, which is not being
disclosed, and
cross-referencing those two
documents, both published by
Rahman's own office, is
instructive. China's pledge,
$500,000, is the largest of
the ten by a wide margin, and
China has two nationals on his
staff. (Also, no answer about
Huawei and the trial Inner
City Press is covering in
person, from the UN or PGA). Bangladesh's
$200,000 pledge, the largest
amount earmarked from any
government specifically for
office support, correlates
with six Bangladeshi nationals
across the team — more than
any other nationality — in an
office led by a president who
is himself Bangladesh's
sitting Foreign Minister.
Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, Qatar,
Ireland, and the Dominican
Republic each pledged money to
the fund and each has at least
one national on staff as well.
Seven of the ten governments
funding this office by choice,
rather than through mandatory
dues, also have their own
people inside it. None
of this proves any individual
staffer's salary traces to
their home country's specific
pledge — that is precisely the
granular disclosure Rahman's
office has been asked for and
has not provided. What his own
two data sets show, read side
by side, on the very morning
he told the General Assembly
that every penny must be
accounted for, is that some
pennies, and whose hands
placed them in this particular
fund, remain the ones his own
office has chosen not to
trace. Watch this site. Newly on the
September 22 speakers list is
Croatia, here on UN
corruption, just before
Guterres had Inner City Press
roughed up and banned: UN Briber Patrick Ho In Appeal Reveals More Lobbying In UN For China Met Croatia President No Audit (July 13, 2019) — In appeal filings, convicted UN briber Patrick Ho's lobbying activities on China's behalf were shown to have included a meeting with Croatia's president, part of a broader pattern the underlying UN audit failed to capture. Watch this site. More on X for
Subscribers here
& Substack here
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Saturday, October 10, 2026
On UNGA Day 1 Khalilur Rahman Talks Trust But Hides Who Pays His Staff and Bans Press
