Friday, June 26, 2026

Amid UN80 Pay to Play UN Budget Games Inner City Press Was Ousted for Covering Inch On



Amid UN80 Pay to Play UN Budget Games Inner City Press Was Ousted for Covering Inch On

by Matthew Russell Lee, Patreon Book Substack

UN GATE, June 21 – How corrupt has the UN been under Antonio Guterres? For staking out and reporting on his corrupt summer budget games, Inner City Press was roughed up and throw out on a July 3-4, with no appeal allowed since.

Now with USUN Mike Waltz claiming reform while delaying responding to a US Freedom of Information Act request about his spending of UN roof for this July 4, still-banned Inner City Press has obtained two memos about this summer's UN budget scams:

Dated 10 June 2026, they come from Kelvin Ong, Director of the Field Operations Finance Division (FOFD/OPPFB/DMSPC), and are addressed to SRSG Anita Kiki Gbeho regarding UNMISS funding and staffing for the 2026/27 financial period (1 July 2026 – 30 June 2027).  The first memo (Ref. 20SKD/2627-AA01) provides the allotment advice. Pending General Assembly adoption of a financing resolution, the Controller has approved an initial allotment set at a reduced 15% of the ACABQ-recommended amount, authorizing UNMISS to incur expenditures of $158,522,800 for the year. If no resolution is adopted by 30 June 2026 and operations are curtailed, spending would be limited to protecting UN personnel and assets, with other mandated tasks suspended. The Mission is asked to hold non-critical spending in July–August, prioritize repayment of loans to the peacekeeping reserve fund/lending missions, and submit monthly cash outflow forecasts by 13 July 2026. The funds are allotted via Umoja Budget Entry Document 5000074260 to the Director of Mission Support, with full authority for the Mission to redeploy funds across fund centres using document types ALR1/ALR2 (not AL01). Questions go to Budget Officer Constant Niyonzima. 

The second memo (Ref. 20SKD/2627-STA) addresses staffing. The Controller has approved a one-month extension (1–31 July 2026) of all posts per the staffing table from the 9 July 2025 allotment advice, to allow time to process July salary payments, with later adjustments made once the financing resolution is adopted. The Mission must review the BPC Position Model and, by 19 June 2026, confirm posts to be redeployed, reassigned/converted/reclassified, or newly created (with relevant position numbers, job codes, and duty stations), plus any posts to be abolished (including uniformed personnel) per ACABQ recommendations not already reflected in report A/80/621. Any additional abolitions decided by the GA must be reported by 3 July 2026.

The old UN July 3-4 shuffle, banning the Press, murkily renting the roof. Watch this site.

Previously, this is about inequitable cuts at UN ESCAP in Thailand:

Dear Matthew Russell Lee, 

The plan for abolishment from UN-ESCAP  is directed only at GS staff, while senior positions—P-5, D-1, D-2, and USG—remain untouched. The salary of a single one of these officials is equivalent to that of fifty or more local staff members. If justice truly mattered, it would be these high-level posts under review—not the livelihoods of ordinary staff.

ESCAP cuts
                        under Guterres - mostly GS staff

Many of these officials are beyond retirement age, largely inactive in their offices, while their administrative assistants act more like personal aides or cooks than contributors to the Organization’s actual work.  This is not about fairness—it is about selfishness and corruption. Guterres and his team have revealed themselves as weak, wicked, and corrupt. They cling to their privileges while sacrificing the most vulnerable staff, simply because they hold the power to decide.  It is therefore no surprise that more and more staff are coming to agree that the UN has become useless, especially under the failed leadership of Guterres.

 Guterres appears increasingly surrounded by what staff describe as “phone-call human resource advisors and legal officers.”

   Martha Helena Lopez, the Secretary-General’s senior advisor on human resources, has become emblematic of this “don’t care” policy. Observers note she looks fatigued, more focused on retirement than on strengthening governance. Rather than engaging with tribunal rulings, she and her team have defaulted to what staff now mockingly call “phone-call directives,” issuing guidance over the phone without regard to established precedent or proper review.  In New York, staff have started referring to her and her legal colleagues as “phone-call officers and advisors” because of their casual approach to matters of grave consequence.

Their advice to the Secretary-General effectively shields misconduct from judicial scrutiny, entrenches his culture of impunity.

 Guterres, they say, should end censorship. Application was made on June 19, 2025. Watch this site.

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