The woman in charge of investigating corruption at the United Nations is leaving her post, but not before letting UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon how lousy a job he’s doing . “Your actions are not only deplorable, but seriously reprehensible. . . . Your action is without precedent and in my opinion seriously embarrassing for yourself," Swede Inga-Britt Ahlenius wrote her 50-page outgoing memo to Ban. "I regret to say that the secretariat now is in a process of decay."
Ahlenius clashed with Ban and his office over who to hire and how to conduct corruption investigations. And from the looks of how understaffed the UN’s Office of Internal Oversight Services is Ahlenius’ point is well taken. Ban has paid a great deal of lip service o the notion that the UN has to deal with corruption and weed out bad apples, but he’s been in charge for three years and he’s got few accomplishments to show for his supposed concern for corruption at the UN. The Iraq Oil-for-Food scandal was never properly prosecuted, UN peacekeeping missions still include criminal behavior such as child rape and certain member states have successfully tried to thwart fraud investigations.
The fact that stern accusations of inefficiency and bad behavior by those who are protecting a corrupt institution only happen when a “whistleblower” leaves his or her position doesn’t help to make this a going concern. More than likely, the news reports of this “explosive” outgoing memo will be gone by tomorrow and the Obama administration will continue to seek foreign policy achievements through the good auspices of the “decaying” United Nations.
No comments:
Post a Comment