Thomas Stelzer: - DESA's first class sleeping beauty get's one more year extension

Well dear DESA staffers you heard it well - if for the past 4 years you were wondering what Thomas Stelzer did as our Assistant Secretary-General - wonder no more - he was just extended from Ban Ki-moon (the Korean) for one more year - so Mr. Stelzer can continue to sleep on First Class while shuffling between Vienna and New York every weekend.

Subject: Your question at the Noon Briefing
From: UN Spokesperson - Do Not Reply @un.org
Date: Tue, Mar 6, 2012 at 4:06 PM
To: Matthew.Lee [at] innercitypress.com

Mr. Stelzer's contract was extended until March 2013. This extension will represent his 5th year as Assistant Secretary-General.

(Click here to view this on Innercitypress.com)

Thomas Stelzer has accumulated 6.2 Million Frequent Flyer Miles in 4 years. Enough to pay for all Rio+20 participant tickets ! Will he do it ?

UN-DESA and Ban Ki-moon Spokesperson lies about the status of IDs for IIMSAM

After the statement of the Spokesperson of Ban Ki-moon on the noon briefing (23 Dec) about IIMSAM and issuing of IDs for their representatives:

Question: Okay. The other one is, I’m sorry, I had asked you yesterday about this, I was just following up on something Jonathan had asked about this NGO [non-governmental organization], IIMSAM [Intergovernmental Institution for the Use of Micro-Algae Spirulina Against Malnutrition], and you had said that no passes were given to the individuals associated with it. So I became aware of that at least the best known of the IIMSAM people was this guy, Mr. Maradona, this comes off Ambassador Maradona. So, I just want to get to the bottom of it. Have you heard any more, because there is a picture that exists of him with a D pass and some are saying that… what is the status? Can you find out, what type of a pass does Mr. Maradona have, because he clearly worked for an NGO and had a diplomat’s pass?

Acting Deputy Spokesperson: Well, I can’t speak to Mr. Maradona, but like I said, regarding IIMSAM, we didn’t have any grounds passes issued for them specifically. And that’s where stand on that right now.

Question: How can an NGO be accredited to ECOSOC [Economic and Social Council] but has no people that can enter the building? It seems kind of contradictory, that’s… what’s the point of being accredited?

Acting Deputy Spokesperson: No, the explanation I gave, the explanation yesterday, is that no grounds passes have been issued to the representatives of IIMSAM, as no person has been able to confirm that they are the authorized representatives of the organization.

Question: So, does it just remain accredited but with no representative?

Acting Deputy Spokesperson: Like I said, that’s the information I have on this.

The Reform UN-DESA is publishing here the photo ID of the Head of IIMSAM which is a diplomatic ID issued to IIMSAM's Maradona as Head of a Diplomatic Delegation.

To view this photo in original click here

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.

DESA's new corruption case might turn into another nightmare for Ban Ki-moon

Spokesperson's Noon Briefing

http://www.un.org/News/briefings/docs//2009/db090828.doc.htm

Question: Can I just ask you one question. There is a pretty detailed report out about a UN employee, Bruno Bastet and that he was receiving welfare housing payments in France while living in New York in a condominium and he was also receiving rental subsidy from the UN. I wanted to just ask two things about it. I wanted to ask first, why does the UN or what is the Secretariat’s thinking on paying rental subsidy to people that actually own, you know extremely expensive apartments? They don’t get rental subsidy if they live in the apartment they own. But, if they rent it out to others and rent another apartment, then they receive rental subsidy. Does this seem reasonable to the Secretariat or…?

Spokesperson: Well, this is a matter, you know, as concerned that matter, you know the matter of the staff member’s rental subsidy, in the case of Mr. Bastet, that could be reviewed through the UN internal process to determine the accuracy and completeness of any statement and claims submitted by Mr. Basted. So, that’s what I can say. In terms of the actual, I can get some additional information for you on rental subsidies, but usually rental subsidies are given for a certain number of years to staff members coming into the system, and they are done according to the statements made by the staff member. [The rental subsidy declines gradually over a seven-year period, so that eventually the staff member must adjust fully to the local market.] And you can get, of course, full information on this. I think you can find this on our website, about the policy on subsidies.

Question: What I mean, because I think Marie was asked about it yesterday, because she is quoted in this report and she says it’s entirely legal for a UN official to own property, but nonetheless apply for rental subsidy to live elsewhere. And I guess I am just asking, you know, whatever the specifics of Mr. Bastet is, does that policy make sense that… Is the purpose of the rental subsidy to give it to somebody that can own, that only lives in rental housing? Or does this create an incentive to actually, as they say, build a real estate empire? Like somebody could own three buildings and still be getting a rental subsidy from the UN. Is that…?

Spokesperson: I’ll try to forward that question for you to the people in charge.