By Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon
BBC - Guardian UK - Honduras - ESPN
UN GATE, July 19 – How corrupt has the UN system become under Antonio Guterres? Well, here is a sample retaliation complaint within UNFPA, in Sudan, which has been provided to Inner City Press, which Guterres has had banned for 1213 days without providing answers:
"Please provide the name and position of the person(s) who has committed the alleged act(s) of retaliation: Mr. Mateen Shaheen; Deputy Representative UNFPA CO, Sudan; email: shaheen@unfpa.org Mr. Massimo Diana; Representative UNFPA CO, Sudan; email: diana@unfpa.org II. Protected Activity: Did you report misconduct? To whom and when (date) did you make your report of misconduct? Yes, to the Executive Director on May 24th. 2021
What misconduct did you report? (Please describe in the context of Section 6 of the policy). Personnel who witness or are affected by wrongdoing. Did you cooperate with a duly authorized fact-finding activity? Who was or made aware of your cooperation? Yes, Ethics Office When did the authorized fact-finding activity take place? What was your role (complainant, witness, other)?
Was a report completed? On June 3rd. 2021, as a Complainant. III. Allegation of Retaliation: Describe, in as much detail as possible, the detrimental action(s) (i.e., alleged retaliation) that you suffered as a result of your protected activity, described in Section II (i.e., reporting the misconduct, or, cooperating with a duly authorized fact-finding activity). Please attach additional pages, if necessary.
1. Harsh or rude communication style by senior management through emails and during meetings, including repeatedly publicly asking staff to look for jobs outside of UNFPA and rudely accusing them of not being worth their salaries. 2. Continuous staff harassment, systematic violation of HR policies and abuse of authority that resulted in an unprecedented high resignation rate of several valuable UNFPA staff and a resulting loss of critical institutional memory, including HR Associate resignation in order not to be implicated in corrupt recruiting practices driven by senior management.
3. Discrimination and nepotism; specifically, un-unified methods of recruitment, including 12 new positions were not opened internally following procedure’ referring to ‘fast track recruitments’ in order to not extend contracts of national staff in the Sudan CO in favour of bringing in staff who have served with senior management in former duty stations. As evidence, in the last six months, six new positions have been recruited and filled by staff from Syria, the former duty station of the Representative. Further, positions have also been filled through personal relations such as bringing on board the wife of the 1 Representative’s friends in Khartoum into the Youth Program without transparency or clarity on roles and responsibility.
4. Manipulating PAD’s and individual performance evaluation reports, as senior management assigned a committee to review and amend performance evaluation report (meant to be between the employee and their direct supervisor). The committee and staff requesting the (negative) amendments to my performance evaluation do not directly supervise me and have no insight into my daily work for UNFPA.
5. Senior management also offered a three-month contract, citing the amended negative performance evaluation report mention in the previous point; has also been decided by the same committee as a deliberate strategy in order to pave the way for non-extension or termination of staff contracts.
6. Pressure to take on colleague’s vacated role with no transparency: After the Programme Assistant in Health Unit resigned citing repeated staff harassment by senior management, I was then offered his post. I am more than happy to take on additional tasks, roles and responsibilities as required by the programme, always keeping in mind the project’s best interest to effectively achieve project goals as part of our important work in Sudan within a harassment free work environment. I have previously supported various divisions and units within the agency upon request beyond my job description. However, in this case I was not offered a clear ToR for the new role offered to me despite repeatedly requesting additional information.
7. Violation of UN Human Resources Charter: As I am familiar with the work of our former colleague, the Health Unit ProgramAssistant, I was fully aware that the ToR of this position is significantly different from my own. Yet senior management or HR were not willing to discuss this transparently or adapt my current ToR accordingly, including adjusting the grade and/or level appropriately. As more than 20% of my ToR would be changed this reaction clearly violated the UN Human Resources recruitment policy. 8. Contract terminated/ not extended: Two weeks later, I have been sent a letter stating that my contract will no longer be renewed after 30 June 2021 and being pressured to sign this letter by HR and Senior Management. This was similar to being pressured to sign my amended performance review and is clearly linked to my principled refusal to take over my colleague’s position after he resigned in distress and no review of my ToR was conducted.
Please explain why you believe the protected activity led to the alleged retaliation? If you are alleging several acts of retaliation, please provide a link between the protected activity/activities and each alleged act of retaliation. Receipt of a letter stating that my contract will no longer be renewed after 30 June 2021 (two weeks after Senior Management offering of Program Assistant position without a clear ToR for the new role offered to me.
Please list any evidence or documentation that would support your allegation of retaliation. If available, please provide the documents listed. 1. Assessing the Work from Home modality; evidence to point 1 in Part III 2. RE PGSD08 2020 NtF AWP and DoP Amendment; evidence to the start of personal harassment by Senior Management 3. RE Contract Extension 21; evidence to points 4 and 5 in Part III 4. RE Expiry of Contract; evidence to points 6, 7 and 8 in Part III 5. Non Extension Letter - Elhassan Zain Elabdin 6. Staff Association Official Letter Draft to Senior Management; submitted on May 9th. 2021 7. Concern Regarding Developments at UNFPA Sudan 8. Individual Concerns at UNFPA Sudan 9. Non-Extension of Contract UNFPA Sudan Country Office
Please provide the names and positions of any individuals who may be able to provide corroborating information to support your complaint of retaliation: • Ms. Sara Abusamra, former Human Resources Associate; Mob.: +249 (0) 9123 82 691 • Mr. Ahmed Gamal, ICT Associate and Head of Staff Association; email: agamal@unfpa.org • Mr. Faisal Abdallah Adam, Programme Specialist (Direct Supervisor); abdallahadam@unfpa.org • Members of the Staff Association 2
IV. Purpose of complaint: Please state your goal in lodging this complaint. What would you like to happen? Ensuring fair assessment to my Performance Evaluation Report. Conducting investigation on the senior management practices listed in part III Providing protection against the current retaliation practices by the senior management Setting prevention policy of the future retaliation practices by the senior management Ensuring harassment-free work environment.
V. History: Who else besides the Ethics Office have you contacted for assistance? No other parties and/or bodies have been contacted for assistance."
Until Inner City Press, along with additional confidential information. Watch this site.
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