Lockheed Martin's Seat on US Committee for UNDP's Board, like UNICEF Germany, Raises Conflict Questions

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis

UNITED NATIONS, February 18 -- A representative of Lockheed Martin, the military contractor's head of business development in Africa and the Middle East James F. Jamerson, serves on the board of directors of the U.S. Committee for the UN Development Program. Lockheed Martin in October 2007 was awarded a $250 million no-bid contract to build infrastructure for UN - African Union hybrid mission in Darfur, UNAMID. Previous board members have included representatives of JPMorgan Chase and Honeywell, and also a board member regarding whom nothing is disclosed. Might these involve conflicts of interest? UN agencies like UNDP and UNICEF finds uses for the U.S. committees, but claim to have no control over them.

This sleight of hand was on display earlier this year when UNICEF refused to answer questions about a fundraiser held for it and for Madonna's organization Raising Malawi by the U.S. Fund for UNICEF, to which Inner City Press was referred but which never, after the fundraiser, provided promised information about its partnerships and safeguards. Across the Atlantic, UNICEF Germany is embroiled in a scandal in which, among other things, consultants were being paid $1200 a day, not based on any written agreement, now-resigned director Dietrich Garlichs' house appears to have been repaired with UNICEF Germany funds and UNICEF Germany was paying to maintain benefactor Gustav Rau's art collection, including making payments to his private secretary. Click here for a benign summary translation of one of KPMG's two reports on the matter. While the other report, and more detail, has been promised, UNICEF's director has not spoken publicly about the controversy, nor answered public questions about the U.S. Fund for UNICEF's Madonna - Gucci event, which Gucci claimed was to celebrate its opening of a store on Manhattan's Fifth Avenue.

Telling, "people close to UNICEF" have said that the favorite to take over UNICEF Germany is Klaus Zumwinkel, who "German authorities said earlier this week they are probing for possibly evading $1.5 million in taxes by transferring money to Liechtenstein." But does he have an art collection?

UNDP's relation with its U.S. Committee can be shown by the role of Fred Tipson. While he testified to Congress earlier this year in a hearing about irregularities in UNDP's now-suspended programs in North Korea as UNDP's Washington liaison, he is listed on the U.S. Committee for UNDP's web site as a previous board member, who moved on to work at AT&T and Microsoft. Any conflict there? UNDP is active in suggesting to developing countries which technology to use.

Mr. Tipson at the hearing told Congress, in defense of UNDP having taken local staffer dictated by the Kim Jong-il government and having paid their salaries directly to the government, "when I worked in China with AT&T, as the private sector we had to hire people through a government agency. That's the way China required it to be done."

The relation between UNDP and its ostensibly independent U.S. Committee is made clearer still by James Gustave Speth, UNDP Administrator from 1993 to 1999, later serving on the board of the U.S. Committee for UNDP. Currently on the board is a representative of Wall Street's Goldman Sachs.

The US Fund for UNICEF, under "About Us," lists corporate partners, including not only Gucci but also Citigroup, GE and ExxonMobil. Its board of directors includes representation from Kimberly-Clark and the ubiquitous JPMorgan Chase. Are these the directors who are supposed to be ensuring that other corporations, like Gucci, don't exploit the UN for commercial gain? A $600 "Gucci Loves New York" handbag is one thing, a $250 million no-bid contract for Lockheed Martin's something else. In both cases, further transparency is needed. Watch this site.

UNICEF Pays Consultants Up To $600 a Day, Its US Fund Twice That, Audits and Veneman Still Withheld

Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of Inner City Press at UN
www.innercitypress.com/un1unicef021108.html

UNITED NATIONS, February 11 -- UNICEF pays consultants up to $625 a day, but the National Committees which used UNICEF's name to raise money apparently pay up to $1200 a day. As UNICEF Germany is engulfed in scandal, repeated requests for UNICEF chief Ann Veneman to answer questions were met Monday with a series of terse written responses. Asked to confirm or deny KPMG's report that UNICEF Germany spent 18% of the funds it raised on administration, spokesman Christopher de Bono responded that "it is the responsibility of each National Committee, overseen by its governing board, to manage these costs." But do the costs in Germany represent 18% of the money contributed? Mr. de Bono says that further response will have to await a review conducted by a senior UNICEF fundraising official, Philip O'Brien, and that these issues were not even discussed at UNICEF's Executive Board meeting held at UN Headquarters in late January.

Inner City Press' thrice-repeated request that Ann Veneman answer questions, about UNICEF Germany, compensation, and her role in the Gucci-sponsored event on February 6 which Gucci publicly claimed "celebrated" the opening of its store on Fifth Avenue, was met Monday by the following written response by Mr. de Bono, that Ms. Veneman "participated in a briefing in Room 226 in December 2007... Decisions regarding her engagement with the media are based on the issues concerned and the many other important matters on her schedule."

So a scandal in which the Chancellor of Germany has demanded greater transparency from UNICEF, director Dietrich Garlichs has been forced to resign and funders are walking away in droves is not an "important matter"? In all of 2007, Ms. Veneman did a total of two press conferences in the UN's briefing room, both time participating in the launch of a report with two or three other briefers. Between October 12, 2006 and October 17, 2007 -- more than year -- Ms. Veneman did not appear once in the UN's briefing room. This did not allow for any questions about UNICEF's actual operations. It should be noted that even Kemal Dervis of the UN Development Program, when questions arose about his agency's operations away from headquarters, came to the Security Council stakeout to take questions from the press. Apparently that is beneath Ms. Veneman.

Non-responsiveness makes a difference. Whereas UNDP has now proposed at least a mechanism by which member states could see internal audits, if not copy them, when Inner City Press asked for UNICEF's policy in this regard, he responded that UNICEF's "current policy is that we do not make these audits available. However, UNICEF is currently working with the inter-agency process on a joint policy that will allow UN entities to share this information with Member States in a consistent manner."

This is an old and recycled answer, one superseded by UNDP, one of the agencies that UNICEF claims to be working with. While UNICEF acknowledges that KPMG "identified problems in internal business processes that must be addressed," UNICEF apparently is comfortable not showing audits of these business processes even to the countries which fund UNICEF's work. While a new policy was brought up by management at UNDP's Executive Board meeting last month, at UNICEF's meeting, the issues was not raised, including by management. Asked why by Inner City Press, de Bono did not answer. Nor have questions about UNICEF's operations in Sri Lanka and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, parts of which has long been pending, being answered. The DR Congo questions involve UNICEF's seeming participation in impunity for recruiters of child soldiers, a topic to be discussed Tuesday by the Security Council. Watch this site.

And see, www.innercitypress.com/un1unicef021108.html