UN Won't Disclose Ban's, Le Roy's or Pascoe's Frequent Flyer Miles, Ignores JIU

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, December 1 -- Two days after denying that UN officials keep for themselves the frequent flyer miles associated with official travel paid by the UN, UN acting Deputy Spokesman Farhan Haq both denied having said it and refused to provide even an estimate of the frequent flying miles racked up and kept in 2010 by Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and his Under Secretaries Alain Le Roy and Lynn Pascoe. Video here, from Minute 8:12.

On November 29, Haq had told Inner City Press that frequent flyer miles are the "possession of the United Nations... held by the United Nations." On November 30 he said that the UN Ethics Office says it is fine that they are not.

The refusal to disclose Ban's frequent flyer miles is in contrast to Haq's office's previous boasting about how many miles Ban has flown in his term as Secetary General. How many of these miles were on commercial carriers and how many of the frequent flyer miles has Ban so far kept?

We will continue to pursue this basic financial information, from and about a Secretary General who has bragged by transparency.

Ban and airplane, frequent flyer miles disclosure not yet shown

Inner City Press asked Haq for the Secretary General's Office's response to a UN Joint Inspection Unit recommendation that the Secretariat (and other UN agencies) ask officials to apply “their” frequently flyer miles to future official travel, as done at the UN Office of Project Services.

Rather than explain why the Secretariat has never acted on this recommendation by the UN system's Joint Inspection Unit -- a recommendation apparently not mentioned by the UN Ethics Office which at the eleventh hour was called in to rubber stamp the personal taking of frequent flyer miles associated with UN paid travel (and also the taking of UN staff member time to work on Under Secretary General Francis Deng's book) -- Haq twice insisted that Inner City Press should contact UNOPS' spokesperson Nicolas George.

But the question is not about UNOPS, it's about the Secretariat's (and Secretary General's) allocation of frequent flyer miles associated with UN paid travel. Watch this site.

From the UN's November 29 noon briefing transcript:

Inner City Press: The document says US diplomats should seek to get the computer passwords, frequent flyer miles, credit card numbers, etcetera, not only of the Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, but SRSGs [Special Representatives] and Force Commanders. Would each of those things, according to you, violate the agreement with the host country?

Acting Deputy Spokesperson Haq: Well, on that, again, bearing in mind that we don’t have any judgement at this stage on the authenticity of the document, bearing in mind that, I do want to read to you a little passage from the 1946 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, and this is a direct quote: “The premises of the United Nations shall be inviolable. The property and assets of the United Nations, wherever located and by whomsoever held, shall be immune from search, requisition, confiscation, expropriation and any other form of interference, whether by executive, administrative, judicial, or legislative action.”

Inner City Press I had some other ones on Sudan, but one thing that the memo made me wonder is there is this reference to frequent flyer miles that seemed strange. What does happen with the frequent flyer miles of Ban Ki-moon or other SRSGs when they fly around? Are they donated to the UN, do they keep them personally, what happens?

Acting Deputy Spokesperson: The frequent flyer miles of UN officials are essentially possessions of the United Nations. I don’t have anything, I don’t have any details about what we do with them, but this is all part of the Organization…

Inner City Press: But can you state, for example, for SRSGs that travel, it goes to the UN or do they keep it personally?

Acting Deputy Spokesperson: No, I believe on work that you do for the Organization, this is part and parcel of the Organization. I need to get further detail about what happens to them, but this is held by the Organization.

At UN, Rebellion and Retaliation in Political Affairs Unit, Pascoe's Transfer Questioned, Faces French - Obama Switch?

By Matthew Russell Lee

UNITED NATIONS, October 8 -- The UN Department of Political Affairs, charged with working internationally for peace, has devolved into some internal warfare. On October 8, DPA chief B. Lynn Pascoe wrote an angry "note to file" about two of his directors, who rebelled against what many of Inner City Press' sources in DPA call a flawed and even corrupt hiring process.

As Mr. Pascoe's Note to File about "Unacceptable Conduct by Messrs. Martinovic and Heitmann" has it, "a P5 level staff member in my office volunteered for the internal mobility exercise. I reviewed the Vacancy Announcement that was posted for the P5 in the Subsidiary Organs [of the Security Council] Branch, and I deemed that she was qualified for the post."

There was only one problem: public notice of this P5 post has already been published, and three candidates from outside the UN had already applied. They were told that a test would be administered to make the process competitive and merit-based. Then they were told that the examination was canceled "for technical reasons."

One of the suddenly disqualified finalists, from Germany, came to New York and demanded of Mr. Aleksandar Martinovic to know what these "technical reasons" were. Another internal candidate, already expert on sanctions, was also sidelined by Mr. Pascoe's unilateral decision to place his colleague Michelle Griffin into the vacant P5 post, effective October 20, 2009.

Returning to Mr. Pascoe's disciplinary version, after he "issued a note to all DPA staff announcing the move, plus one other transfer, on 2 October, 2009" suddenly Mr. Martinovic and Horst Heitmann, the head of the Security Council Division, informed Mr. Pascoe's Special Assistant Karin Ann Gerlach that "they no longer required the post, did not need the staff member I had laterally re-assigned."

This was a protest of Mr. Pascoe's circumvention of an already begun recruitment process, sources tell Inner City Press. But rather than reconsider his actions, challenged by two respected directors in DPA, Pascoe fired off a note to their personnel files, calling it a "direct contravention of... the instructions I issued as head of the Department... unacceptable conduct for senior managers."

For the head of the UN Secretariat's main diplomatic unit to resort to managing his directors by vituperative notes to personnel files strikes some as a bad sign.

Less documented than the above but not entirely unrelated, well placed sources in the UN say that the United States is mulling taking over the Department of Peacekeeping Affairs, thereby displacing its current chief Alain Le Roy, but in exchange giving DPA to Le Roy's native France. They noted, however, that India too is making a claim to the Peacekeeping post. Watch this site.

UN's Pascoe and a retributed director who protested Pascoe's autocratic rule

While there is no mechanism, it appears, for a "note to the personnel file" of Mr. Pascoe, his circumvention of an already begun recruitment exercise, disregard for the protests of two long time directors, and notes to their files do not reflect well on him. Pascoe concludes, "I have asked Mr. [Haile] Menkerios to duly note this incident on both e-PAS' for the 2009/10 cycle."

Mr. Menkerios is known as Pascoe's "go-to" guy for African issues, totally sidelining Pascoe's predecessor as DPA chief Ibrahim Gambari. But with Menkerios reportedly up to replace Rodolphe Adada in Darfur, will he continue as the e-PAS hatchet man against two of his directors?

A month ago, Inner City Press posed a simple question to DPA and its spokesman, about a hiring process. It took more than three weeks to get it answered, and even then, only partially. While that story is finally in preparation, the report above, supported by two documents with Mr. Pascoe's signature, does not require any three week wait. Pascoe's note to file says "they will have an opportunity to respond in writing should they wish." So, on that or Pascoe's response, we have have more. Watch this site.

Footnote: On October 8, the day Pascoe signed the above quoted note to file, Inner City Press asked him questions on the record about both Somalia and Guinea. On the former, both on and off camera, Pascoe presented himself as unaware of the specifics of the United States' curtailment of aid to the UN World Food Program due to questions about the applicability of anti-terrorism laws to aid in the Al Shabaab controlled portions of Somalia. Video here from Minute 7:47.

On the latter, Pascoe expressed outrage about the rapes in Guinea, and said he hoped for an election, to which the UN would provide help. Video here, from Minute 11:29.

Hopefully clearer than in Afghanistan.

Then Inner City Press obtained a copy of Pascoe's note to file, which seems an equally or more accurate reflection of current DPA diplomacy.