by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack
UN GATE, Jan 27 – How corrupt is today's UN under Antonio Guterres? Today's example is UNDP's UNCDF, about which his spokespeople Stephane Dujarric and Melissa Fleming refuse all Press questions. Inner City Press has asked them, and others at the UN - Nothing.
We sent this to UNDP Management/Executive Board/Colleagues
We are reaching out to see who can help us look into the abuse of authority and discriminatory recruiting practices by our new Executive Secretary, Prandeep Kurukulasuriya. After almost two years without a permanent leader, Prandeep’s arrival was welcomed by many with open arms. Under his short tenure and without a thorough understanding of the organization and what works and what does not work, he has initiated a chaotic and discriminatory restructuring process whose goals and end result is only clear to himself and the HR consultant he is working with. He has dashed many of our expectations.
Prandeep has by-passed most of the HR functions that typically protect employees. He brought in an HR consultant who has little/no knowledge of the different roles and whose main objective seems to be eliminating existing staff who Prandeep does not want in the future organization. Most of the employees are being interviewed by panelists who have no knowledge of skillsets required for the roles they are interviewing us for. Individuals who had in-depth knowledge of their functions are being pushed out and are being replaced by less qualified individuals, hand-picked by Prandeep through a process not based on merit but based on their inability to question him. It is not clear if UNDP has provided any oversight to ensure compliance with existing HR policies. To many employees, it seems like UNDP leadership and UNDP HR is enabling him.
Those who have objected to the irrational changes, have had their functions eliminated from the new org or are being sidelined. As a result most employees when approached by the investigators who were looking into some of the comments made by Prandeep regarding brown people have opted not to coorperate in order not to cross Prandeep so they can keep their jobs. Prandeep’s management style relies heavily on intimidation and subtle threats with the sole purpose of getting everyone in line -an approach that silences staff’s voice, creativity and generation of ideas. In addition to autocratic style of management that does not welcome any feedback from other stakeholders, he has instilled an approach of micro managing even the smallest tasks thus suffocating most of the employees. We are asking UNDP leadership, the UNDP staff association, the press, and those with authority in the UN system to investigate these malpractices and abuse of authority in a manner that ensures psychological safety and confidentiality
We'll have more on all this. No answer from UN Spox Dujarric on this. Keep the info coming.
***
Your support means a lot. As little as $5 a month helps keep us going and grants you access to exclusive bonus material on our Patreon page. Click here to become a patron.
Feedback: Editorial [at] innercitypress.com
