By Matthew Russell Lee, Exclusive, Video
UN GATE, September 19 – From the corrupt UN of Antonio Guterres in New York, the whole UN system has been corrupted, including UNESCO. Corrupted UNESCO in turmoil after the publications by ICP Following the recent articles by Inner City Press, several internal investigations have been launched and over the last weeks, at UNESCO, the internal oversight service (IOS) is badly shaking the coconut tree.
Several reports with the conclusions of the investigations and the recommendations for sanctions are on the desk of the Director-General Audrey Azoulay for decision. We will watch closely whether she will impose equitable sanctions or will rather prefer to cover up those reports related to people in her Cabinet. In addition to the investigations already launched, here are some additional elements that could trigger off action files by IOS: - New cases lost in Geneva where UNESCO got sentenced again a month ago by the ILOAT to pay hundreds of thousands of taxpayers’ money. IOS may check the reasons for this institutional ineptitude and investigate the work of the senior staff members in HRM dealing with contestated cases, namely A. Grisar and A. Duganis. A sanction that would certainly put an end to this persisting detrimental situation in dealing with personnel files, is an automatic wage withholding of HRM managers so as to reimburse the financial loss for the Organization provoked by their incompetence in dealing with contested files. For the record, UNESCO lost in Geneva more than one and a half million dollars over the last two years because of the total lack of respect for rules and internal procedures by HRM which is normally supposed to enforce them.
After the removal from office last July of the Director human resources of UNESCO Hong Kwon, things are obviously not getting better during the interim of HRM assured by the Assistant - DG for Administration the Brit Nicholas Jeffreys. It is true that currently his main concern is how to get rid of the Permanent Delegations of member states to UNESCO since Mr Jeffreys considers their proximity as severely jeopardizing the tranquility of the UNESCO senior management team in keeping mismanaging the organization.
Another file for IOS is the verification of the functioning of the transportation unit of UNESCO. The Director of the Cabinet Mr Nicolas Kassianides, is still using an official car without being entitled to do so. Even more unacceptable is the use by him of official cars for transportation to airports and railway stations when at the same time he is getting the terminal fare DSA paid to him, which in such way goes directly into his pocket. This financial trickery, centered on embezzlement and abuse of power, may interest IOS to the utmost. As pointed out by a senior staff member, if DG Azoulay still believe she has a chance for re-election, one of her first steps should be to get rid of her Director of Cabinet, Kassianides, the young inexperienced French fellow from the Quai d’Orsay. We will have more next week on the intentional destruction of the Culture Sector of UNESCO and on the appointment of sons and daughters of Ambassadors to UNESCO in the Secretariat of the Organization. One persisting mystery though is the reason why influential member states remain silent, while no other previous Director-General benefited from such indulgence and for how much longer the deep moral and programmatic crisis in which UNESCO is swimming today will be considered within acceptable limits by those funding the Organization. We will have more on all that. Watch this site!
And now comes Hong Kwon went as far as he could perverting the human resources system of UNESCO in Paris. Cases of harassment expanded, disastrous recruitment policy implemented, total mess with the reclassification policy that even exposed the DDG from China and made him look like a fool in front of all staff members concerned. And making China look bad is one of few firing offenses in Guterres' UN.
Hong Kwon had plans to stay in Paris for at least two years more, but after being severely exposed during the last session of the Executive Board of UNESCO in April for his disastrous management of the cases contested by the staff most of which had been lost because of his incompetence before the UN tribunal in Geneva, the Director General Azoulay had no other choice but to see him leave his position on an insultingly short notice.
Inner City Press will / would ask the following question to Guterres' still vacationing (in France) spokesman Stephane Dujarric, whose Deputy Farhan Haq now refuses to answer Inner City Press even as he has in the past on the UN's child rape: After being sacked from UNESCO despite the initial extension of his contract until 2021 for the cases lost in Geneva (11 out of 13 cases in 2018), what position might Hong Kwon now be assuming in the UN? Can you explain how will he be used and what for given his record in Paris, of imposing the irregular reclassification scheme, after disrupting the functioning of entire sectors and programs of the organization with a mobility scheme painfully and partially implemented? What place is reserved for a manager with proven lack of respect for staff members, people, rules and procedures, using his own staff for cleaning and cooking at his place, relentlessly covering up cases of sexual and moral harassment of staff? He seems perfect for Guterres, just like Colin Stewart. We intend to follow the career of this Hong Kwon, another perfect match for Guterres - except that Hong Kwon unlike Guterres has yet to cover up child rape. Yet.
Here is some of Kwan's history, which makes him so appropriate for Big Tony Guterres - birds of a feather: Following the exclusive report by Inner City Press of May 26, the wind of panic in the Cabinet of Azoulay is blowing across UNESCO. An internal note issued on 6th June describes the disciplinary measures taken during the period 1st January 2017 to 31 December 2018.
Prepared and disseminated hastily after the publication of the Inner City Press article, the Information Circular IC/HR/163 clearly aimed at diverting the attention of staff and member states from the current scandals, in a pathetic attempt to pull the wool over their eyes, but actually nobody got fooled.
On the contrary, the Director of Cabinet, Nicolas Kassianides is already under internal investigation after the article by ICP but even before the conclusion of the investigation, he is proudly claiming that he committed in fact no crime as the grants for renting his apartment had been duly approved by the Director of Human Resources Hong Kwon. This is actually not an astute defense argumentation, as corruption schemes have always been diligently validated by the Director Human Resources Hong Kwon since his appointment at UNESCO in 2017 .
The most recent example of such transgressions is the approval by Hong Kwon of a consultancy contract for the son of the Ambassador of Brazil to UNESCO. Madam Ambassador is well known for her unreserved and unquestionable support for the lousy reforms proposed by Azoulay and her team during the last two sessions of the Executive Board of UNESCO. Now, for those good and loyal services, she and her descendant are getting a candy from the Azoulay’s private candy shop - that's what UNESCO is turning into.
The contract is placing her son in the Division for external relations led by Edouard Matoko, who, of course, as the most prominent yes-man of Azoulay in this Administration, keenly accepted this very competent young person as a well-paid by tax-payers money consultant. Guess what, once more, this deliberate act of abuse of power and traffic of influence was suitably validated by the Cabinet of Azoulay and by the Director Human Resources Hong Kwon. Another internal investigation launched last week concerns the case exposed by Inner City Press on the misuse of tax-payers money in large proportions. Take that example - the financial services of Azoulay authorized a payment of some 450,000 US dollars to an unknown financial institution in London. After effecting the payment, those funds vanished in someone’s pocket. Still, no measures to recover the money by the corrupted UNESCO.
The fundamental question is why member states, and especially the Nordic countries, are not taking any action on the disclosed cases of corruption, traffic of influence and embezzlement. Obviously, the European Union rich-countries-club solidarity is playing a role so as to pledge institutional impunity to the French DG Azoulay and her top managers. Imagine for a moment their immediate reaction if the Director General had been elected from a developing country... Inner City Press will have more on that.
Inner City Press has exclusively reported: Political rot plagues UNESCO less than two years after the election of the French Director-General Audrey Azoulay. Her Director of Cabinet, Nicolas Kassianides was granted illegal allocations for renting a lavish five bedroom flat at the heart of the most expensive area in Paris. It resulted in tens of thousands dollars spent by UNESCO for paying him rent allocations to which he is not entitled as he was appointed under his French nationality. More on Patreon.
The same concerns the first class travels of Kassianides, in addition to the personal car put at his disposal by UNESCO against all rules.
Such corruption schemes are keenly validated by the Director Human Resources Hong Kwon, well known also as promoter of essentially modern slavery – his personal assistant from the Philippines is cooking and cleaning every week the house of Director HRM for free, which is against all rules and principles of the organization promoting human rights and gender balance. [It echoes the human traffic in New York City of Antonio Guterres good friends the Qatari royals, reported on by Inner City Press in exile at the SDNY court, here.]
The Cabinet of Azoulay is a bunch of amateurs - an advisor to Azoulay who resigned recently mixed in an official correspondence the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Oops!
Even more ridiculous, the main adviser to the DG Azoulay for culture and communication, Sunna Altnoder, forgot her passport at home while traveling on official mission for UNESCO to Abidjan, missing thus the flight with her boss and then arrived late even for the second flight booked by UNESCO for her first class trip, provoking huge costs to UNESCO of some additional 10,000 euros paid for air-tickets for no reason other than her amateurish behavior. Will she pay it back?
Another very serious case recently covered up by the administration of Azoulay, concerns the misuse of taxpayers money in large proportions. Take that example - the financial services of Azoulay authorized a payment of some 450,000 US dollars to an unknown financial institution in London. After effecting the payment, those funds simply vanished in someone’s pocket. Still, no accountability, no reaction, no measures to recover the money by the corrupted UNESCO.
At the bureaucratic level, in April the Executive Board rejected her draft program and budget for the next biennium until its autumn session; the proposal by Azoulay strategic transformation is in limbo. Worse chaos is caused by incompetent senior appointees and by the Cabinet of Azoulay, composed mainly by French administrators with little knowledge of multilateral UN work.
It begun with the weakening of the program sectors and the wiping out of the so-called expertise hubs within UNESCO, and was then complemented by a lack of accountability by senior managers that led to anarchy and favorable environment for pursuing naked self-interests. In a very short period, the UNESCO system atomized. Unruliness became the new normal in dealing with major issues both within and outside the Organization.
A senior official told Inner City Press, “The third constitutional amendment, proposed by Qatar few days ago, to have the next Director-General elected by the General Conference instead of by the Executive Board, is well accepted by the member states but not by France, as they consider it directed against Azoulay’s desired re-election. [Mirroring Antonio Guterres mad desire for a second even more rotten term.] Actually, this is quite inaccurate, but says a lot about the febrility of Azoulay’s administration." An erudite senior official, needless to say, befitting UNESCO.
An ambassador from group one snarked: "The French clearly have an agenda to reduce the scope and the impact of UNESCO in the future. The links between the leaver(s) and Azoulays both pere et fille are well known in our capitals." More on this on Patreon, here.
The Azoulay administration is indeed all but leading by example toward the bottom.
The staff unions are appalled by such a lack of internal control and that there are - again -, no sanctions whatsoever even in such serious case of embezzlement. Still banned Inner City Press will have more on that.
