UNITED NATIONS, February 13 – Amid UN travel waste scandals overseen and mostly covered up by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres - his firing of Erik Solheim being an incongruous example - whistleblowers have told Inner City Press of a new one...thrice. Since banned Inner City Press started reporting on the UN Office of Project Services UNOPSthis year, multiple sources have approached it to offer more information which we exclusively report as Guterres' spokesman have refused to answer any Inner City Press questions on UN system corruption despite lead spokesman Stephane Dujarric's on camerapromise of answers, and the written one of Guterres' USG Alison Smale:
We continue receiving reports of UNOPS unethical recruitment practices, especially evident in UNOPS Geneva office. Since Mr. Moin Karim, described by multiple staff as a Saudi citizen of Pakistani origins, took office as the regional director for UNOPS global services portfolios, based in Geneva but working globally, the proportionate number of Indian, Afghani, Iraqi and Pakistani employees (mostly young, male) has increased in UNOPS offices in New York, Geneva and Copenhagen, that are under Mr Moin Karim management. This is a consistent complaint among staff, that Guterres' UN has not addressed. But this is not the only part of the scam. Mr Karim is also known for using UNOPS to fast track recruitment of his acquaintances. The initial placement is usually done by Mr Karim's office through issuing those individuals with short term work contracts, which are then used to process Swiss residence permits, which Mr Moin Karim can authorize without clearance of the UNOPS central HR office and then using the short term contracts as justification to place people to more permanent jobs. UNOPS ethics office is unable to trace any of the cases directly to Mr Karim, because so many people were 'job placed' through this scam over the past years, who then owe favors to Mr Moin Karim and who he then uses them to feed his scam in roles such as members of so-called selection processes, who are told to sign off on the recruitment processes of the next person being hired using this scam, all within the rules of UNOPS. The whistleblowers also think that Mr Karim's scam involves some of the senior managers, heads of division, human resourses in UNOPS Geneva and headquarters in Copenhagen, who owe him favors or exchange recruitment or patronage favors to each other. Mr Moin Karim is widely known among UNOPS civil servants and consultants for his way of offering patronage, protection and promises of career promotion in exchange for participating in his pyramid. Among other interesting corrupt practices reported by whistleblowers to us state that Mr Moin Karim uses UNOPS and his authority as regional director, to ‘hire’ consultants in Geneva on symbolic lump-sum contracts that pay ‘contractors’ symbolic fees (few hundred to few thousand US dollars) who then use their contracts to obtain Swiss work permits and stay in Switzerland for several years. It is said that a number of individuals, who otherwise would not be eligible to reside in Switzerland, have entered the country on those fake contracts and are now seeking citizenship, or are temporarily hiding from their respective authorities.... Several reports were received in the last few weeks by Inner City Press from UNOPS consultants in Geneva who claim that after years of administrative uncertainty, they are now facing a threat of paying taxes for up to 5 years retroactively, which, for some of them, amounts to few hundred thousand US dollars. The consultants claim that while UNOPS has for the last few years denied any knowledge of tax issues in Geneva, UNOPS more recently have directed them to talk to Swiss local authorities, the local authorities were often unaware of what their status entailed, explaining that they were not liable to tax payments, while the UNOPS Geneva Human Resources had not provided clarity on the matter to incoming workers. It is said that UNOPS deploys over 300 consultants in Geneva, who have, all of a sudden, been told, in late 2018, that their contracts were not tax exempt. We are told that over the past couple of months few dozen UNOPS consultants have resigned, and fled the country. In an attempt to save face, Mr Moin Karim, UNOPS Regional Director, has forced some of his consultants to sign fraudulent new contracts, that claim that they work from countries other than Switzerland, where UN is exempt from paying tax on its consultants, in order to avoid mass resignations or fines by the Swiss government. These consultants, who pretend to be working from abroad, continue coming to their offices at UNOPS in Geneva on daily basis – a scam that Mr Moin is trapped to maintain in order to justify the relatively large size of the UNOPS office in Geneva, which in turn justifies the size of his Directorate and his position, rank and pay grade within UNOPS. Moin Karim of UNOPS reportedly does not frequently come to his office in Geneva these days, and mostly works from either his expensive Geneva mansion - akin to Guterres and his $15 million Sutton Place mansion - or his private resort apartment in the Swiss mountains, to avoid dealing with UNOPS disgruntled employees or anything to do with UNOPS. Instead, Mr Karim has been paying frequent visits to a number of fashion events in Geneva and London (where he happens to own yet another luxury apartment), as can be seen here and here. It is also reported that Mr Moin Karim is not just an ordinary visitor to these fashion events, but he also heavily invests into the fashion industry, perhaps as his fallback plan, should UNOPS Executive Director one day find down the extent to which matters are confused in UNOPS Geneva office and ask Mr Karim to resign, the whistleblowers muse. One also wonders, how a UN staff member, whose career has seen nothing but civil servant work to UN over the past 20 years, can afford buying properties in 2 most expensive capitals to live in the world. But a fish rots from the head - Guterres omitted from his UN public financial disclosure covering 2016 his paid board position with the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation which tried to sell its Partex Oil to UN briber CEFC China Energy. A fish rots from the head - but we will continue to ramp up coverage of both the head and the tail, or fins...
It seems clear that Guterres and his team have engaged in censorship for corruption, to conceal a blatant conflict of interest by Guterres. It has been raised by Inner City Press to the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services, and others. Watch this site.
