Today at 10:00 at UN Library our USG will talk to us about his latest report and how he and his ASGs plan to address the increasing fraustration of DESA's staff as well as the rapidly growing corruption and miss-management inside our Department.
The report has been slow in coming. Dated April 30th,it has just been released. What it describes, however, is a serious state of mismanagement and maladministration in our Department which was set up and tasked to assist the deliberations of one of the principal organs of the United Nations: the Economic and Social Council. Among the vast array of issues that may come within its purview are socio-economic development, sound governance and human rights.
Some sixty years ago, a special UN programme to help developing countries improve their systems of governance and public administration was established in our Department, making it one of the oldest in the Organization. Though it is still in existence and DPADM, one of the key Divisions of our Department, continues to administer it, it's but a pale reflection of its former self. Worse still, so-called Division of Public Administration and Development Management has become one of the main exemplars of maladministration, which the report describes in detail. The profile of the Division and of its Chief are writ large in the report.
Already in the Executive Summary, the reader of the report gets a inkling of the intensity and the depth of the dissatisfaction of the bulk of the staff with this sorry state of affairs inside UN-DESA. In para.6 ,for instance, the Task Force Members Representing the Staff explicitely refer to the:
"General lack of trust, intimidation and distrust in the Organization's systems {which} appear to affect the work environment in a number of offices and affect their performance in a meaningful way."
The rest of the report reads like a tale of woes, in which most frequently mentioned are:
1. absence of consultation,
2. lack of accountability, openness and transparency in the management of the staff;
3. lack of concern for their needs;
4. " lack of strategic management " and wastage of " resources and institutional memory ", particularly apparent in the "frequent use of consultants and retirees to fill temporary vacancies" (p.6) often for months or years (p.16);
5. "vacancies{that} are timed and tailored to fit specific candidates or delayed and consultants hired as temporary replacements "; and
6. " ....these backdoor recruits " eventually acquiring " permanent posts often at a higher level" (p.15).
Further down in the report, the issues raised by the staff include "sub-standard ...practices and abuse of power by managers". Noting the "perception of abuse and impunity is widespread " (p.19), the report explains that " Managers are perceived as being allowed to take decisions based on their own and...short-term interests versus the broader long-term interests of the organization". Indeed, they are perceived " as having been allowed to treat some staff unfairly to the point of professional harassment and discrimination... based on personal likes and dislikes"(p.20).
Elsewhere, in the same vein, the staff express the view that the Performance Appraisal System (PAS) ...is currently conducted in a way that is either irrelevant or used by managers to punish/sanction staff members they don't like rather than being used to provide guidance and incentives for staff performance" (p25).
Mostly a passive onlooker, the DESA Executive Office(EO)appears to have done little to arrest this rapid decline let alone to try to remedy this situation. The members of the Task Force expressed "appreciation to the Under-Secretary-General for the opportunity to conduct this exercise" (p.2 para 7).
In contrast to his predecessor , Sha Zukang did not look the other way. Nor did he choose to ignore the accumulated evidence of gross abuse and wrongdoing.
None of these issues are new. Repeated investigations since 2003-4 revealed consistent patterns of maladministration. However, their findings were hushed by an organization apparently only concerned to salvage a waning reputation for integrity. Had DESA acted promptly, it could have stopped the rot and punished the wrongdoers. It did nothing of the sort but allowed the abuse to continue and to intensify.
The attempted cover-up was stopped when, in January 2007, the New York Sun, Fox-News, Washington Times and Wall Street Journal reported on scandals and abuses by DESA involving the misuse of monies of a trust fund. Now the "cat was out of the bag"; a damning report by the auditors of the OIOS was publicly debated in the GA, this last October 10th and yet, in spite of it all, DESA and DPADM -- now ironically nicknamed " good governance division" ( The Washington Times June 12, 2008)-- went on about their business as if nothing was the matter.
One hopes that this latest report, which seems to have the backing of the current USG (Sha Zukang) may shake up DESA and put an end to a pattern and culture of impunity, which have lasted too long.
For more than three years now, both the Department of Management have been repeatedly warned of the deepening malaise in DESA and DPADM; to little effect ,however.Staff members of the Department will tell you how the Division used "a big shredder" to eliminate the evidence before the investigation--initially the auditors of the OIOS; then the Procurement Task Force --could lay their hands on it.
Meanwhile, DESA and DPADM went on about their business of preaching to the world ,what they failed to practise at home. In spite of mounting evidence of maladministration , which the latest report of Human Resources Task Force has brought to light , DESA/DPADM were going around the world sponsoring workshops and seminars on public service professionalism, transparency and accountability. Junkets on public trust were organized (June 2007) and numerous consultants were hired at great expense to help dispell the impressions which clouded the reputation of DESA/DPADM.
All the above went on under the "watchful eye" of Guido Bertucci himself and a former "Ethics Officer", who quit the Department of Management,only to be rewarded for services to Bertucci,with a post and a promotion in his immediate entourage.
Bertucci's gang still proclaim their innocence and say that they've been cleared. But is this what the reports of the OIOS and the Procurement Task Force (PTF) have put in black and white? Leaked to The Washington Times, the PTF report rather maintains the opposite, calling in fact for sanctions against the Director of DPADM and members of his entourage.
But where is the report? Though a year and half in preparation, it is apparently blocked in the office of the culprit, which it is trying to expose. Is this the UN way of promoting integrity and ethics?
Anyhow let's all wait for out 10:00 am meeting and see if this is going to be a real Culture Revolution or only an old-country music event....!!!
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