Mismanagement and Waste Erode UN-DESA's best intentions

While the UN-DESA was trying to implement its core mandates and assist members tates in many development areas, millions vanished from its headquarters in New York and/or peripheral project centers . The CASH was diverted in form of illegal hiring of shadow consultants and institutions.

The cases of Catherine Gazzoli, Adriana Alberti, Barbara Ubaldi, Elia Armstrong, Jose Manuel Sucre, Claudio Aponte or Bernard Kligsberg or even the mismanagement of Associate Experts Programmes - epitomizes only few of the uncomfortable truths about the Guido Bertucci's and Furio De Tomassi's operations inside DESA. 

The system of awarding contracts in DESA, including the role of Catherine Peluso and Patrizio Civili - a blatant lapse in office rules and regulations - reflected the mismanagement and waste that are all too typical of the sprawling collection of regional offices, councils and projects that UN-DESA has become.

If you ask around in DESA, many staffers and officials serving here would describe, with exasperation, anger and regret, a department grown rife with what a longtime DPADM staffer called "appalling inefficiencies and backbiting and corruption" - tenacious cancers that have debilitated DESA as well as entire UN, demoralized its own staff and severely undercut its support in the member states. 

DESA of today, and specially DPADM lavished money on conferences and round-tables that produce little but talk, or justified for managers to find a short-way visiting their home countries paid by UN. Millions of words are printed in turgid reports. The defense of the status quo perpetuates unneeded projects, while fraud has tarnished the luster of even some of the more successful projects/products. 

As a member state's representative of fifth committee said: " this bureaucracy was designed in hell - and Ban Ki-moon and Sha Zukang better change it now".

Change is always a problem in UN and specifically inside DESA - were many managers don't want changes because many of them have vested interests in the existing system.

Latest OIOS reports have shown that the failings of the UN-DESA, which have undermined its credibility with both government and private citizens, can be traced in part to micromanagement by member states and their puppets inside DESA.

One thing we have learned so far on Bertucci operation is that they used hiring of consultants and contractors to derail funds. Among the many tricks used is the hiring also of so called "retirees" - who preferred to be hired as consultants in additions to obtaining their normal pensions and serve in CORE functions such are: - human resources or finance. 

Critics of DESA's operations contend that true reforms should include pruning DESA of its obsolete appendages. Technical Cooperation Management Support Unit, for example is a shameful duplication of resources and roles with those already embedded inside DM/Secretariat. TCMS also has played the role of fire-wall towards any internal audits or investigations.