Mr. Sha Zukang - how much eternity cost in DESA?

We hoped that the reforms promised by Ban Ki-moon would have had an effect and change the existing view that the UN is one of the MOST CORRUPT organization in the world.

But unfortunately, DESA still seems to act within its old framework of using an antiquated system of nepotism, personal ties, preservation of self-interest. This is the DESA system. What's important is fostering your connections and not improving productivity or performance. Who your connections are is the most important qualification than abilities and skill in judging who stays or who goes. 

For example, a director who has retired a long time ago is kept on DESA payroll as a consultant and as head of a project just because of his connections. This despite the fact that the partners of the project don't like him at all. He has antagonized the project's partners and has been a major headache to the technical staff who are fostering these ties to ensure that they get more project funding. 

The irony is that the same technical staff gets screwed over by their boss since once the money comes in, TCMS will use that money to get this 65 years old man a longer consultancy contract, and screw the staff who actually do the work and who are extended from month-to-month. He even has the brashness to inform them that they may not be renewed any longer because the project is running out of money. Meanwhile he is cooking up a scheme to get himself a one year contract that will give him all the benefits that he used to enjoy as Director. But who will do the work? That's a good question. Why not hire interns from Columbia or NYU or any willing victim to do the work that the technical staff and hope that they give him the same results. But the partners of the project are threatening to pull out when this happens. Does he care? No, because he already has allotted himself a year's worth of pay plus benefits, for not mentioning DSAs for travels and millions of free air-miles that he might not be able to use for the rest of his life even if he flies every week.

Why do you keep these kind of people in DESA Mr. Sha Zukang?!

Another thing, the continuous post thing should work both ways. Who evaluates the supervisors that evaluates the administrative staff? Who polices their activities certainly not their immediate superiors not with the system that is existing now. Where one's boss used to be a colleague that got promoted through one's influence or assistance or in some case the one who's director now used to be working under this supervisor before he relinquished his post. So what do you do - turn a blind eye and walk on. This continuous post thing will not work unless specific guidelines and policies are laid down and enforced. Only in the UN will you see administrative staff who don't know how to use basic word processing or spreadsheet work. If that happened in realms outside UN you either get trained, leave or laid off.

Does reform fall solely in Ban-Ki Moon's shoulders? Don't think so. You Mr. Sha Zukang have accepted this job to make reality Ban Ki-moon's promises for reform inside UN/DESA. It is your job to ensure that such reforms happen. Stop sleeping Mr. Sha and wake up both of your ASGs who have accumulated more air-miles than a full time transatlantic pilot. Start reforming DESA now and where is needed - shake up the system and re-appoint people who are under performing or are not doing anything at all. 

You promised us in the town hall that we would see some kind of improvement. The fact is that we are not. If you think that your achievement was just to get the USG Tag in your chest, than you got it already two years ago, if you cant do the job move along and let someone else do it. 

We have seen enough of cronyism inside DESA so far.

A silent tsunami on the way against Filipino staff at UN Secretariat and DESA

In a flagrant discriminatory targeted campaign, the cupola of MAFIA in DESA, the Executive Office and Marie Oveissi's TCMS (we like the old name) has been targeting the "Filipino" Staff as "the problem" with the capacity development in DESA.

It appears that Pelluso and Oveissi have no shame at all. By targeting the Filipino staff, and by singling out a nationality and determining that "they are the problem", this is nothing but an old communist and leftist way to shift the attention of the ongoing OIOS/OHRM investigation into the real DESA's illegal activities and mismanagement of funds. 

OIOS - instead of focusing in Filipino staff, who are the most devoted and hard working employees at the UN -  should focus on the corruption, nepotism and illegal hiring of hundreds of Italians and other developed countries "so-called VIP consultants".

The corruption in DESA has never been generated from General Service, who has been humiliated, abused and harassed for years, while our "Professionals" enjoy all the perks, including the ability to hire, fire and deploy financial resources wherever and whenever they like. 

ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

ALL TOGETHER SHOULD SAY NO TO MAFIA IN UN-DESA

JOIN US AND SAY NO MORE!!

SCANDAL: - Claudio Aponte returns to CEPA 2009 as University Observer

OIOS investigated DESA and found that Mr. Claudio Aponte was hired from Guido Bertucci and TCMS illegally against all established rules and regulations. Moreover, MR. Aponte had not produced nor filed any end-of-mission reports for his alleged work, despite hundreds of thousands of dollars paid to him on fees and expensive transatlantic travel costs.

As we already provided proof of the miss-representation of Claudio Aponte of both DESA and Mexico Government, the miss-management in DPADM seem to have no limits. 

Haiyan Qian, who owns her job to Guido Bertucci, is now paying Claudio Aponte's travel and DSA to allow him to attend CEPA 2009 (click here for list of observers) - but this time as Observer of the Autonomous University of Mexico......UAUUUUUUUUUUUUU

But wasn't last year that Mr. Aponte represented Mexico Government at CEPA, and the year before(08)....and the year before(07)?? 

Wasn't Aponte Un-DESA Representative in Mexico ? 

So please Ms QIAN -

 TELL US WHO REALLY IS CLAUDIO APONTE ? 

UN-DESA fails to implement mobility, while 70% of its Managerial force is expected to retire - there is a total lack of succession planning

Our dear leader Ban Ki-moon in his address to General Assembly on September 23, 2008, said:

In closing, let me briefly return to the theme of my address to you last year – a stronger UN for a better world. The foundation of all our work is accountability. The UN Secretariat, including myself, is accountable to you, the Member States. And that is why I push so hard, so strongly for UN reform.

We need to change the UN culture. We need to become faster, more flexible and more effective and more modern. In the coming weeks, I will ask you, the Member States, to support my proposals for a new human resources framework. We need to replace our current system of contracts and conditions of service. It is dysfunctional. It is demoralizing. It discourages mobility between UN departments and the field. It promotes stagnation, rather than creativity. It undercuts our most precious resource – the global, dedicated corps of international civil servants that is the backbone of the United Nations.

But at United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), our management composed by:

• USG- Sha Zukang - Arm Expert;
• ASG- Jomo Kwame Sundaram - the only Economist;
• ASG- Thomas Stelzer - former President of Klangforum Wien, a leading ensemble for contemporary classical music;

have still to initiate an internal assessment and implementation of Ban's plans.

All these three gentlemen have been on the job at minimum one year (Stelzer - Feb 08). They need to initiate immediately an assessment of the age structure of the staff across in DESA, to assess the overall dimensions of the average ageing of staff and its impact on human resources management policies, including succession planning, and its financial implications, with a special emphasis on the Professional staff.

All the reports that come from Catherine Pelluso's office provide only general statistics on gender, geographical distribution and the basic demographic profile of staff. Most reports do not pay sufficient attention to age-related issues, lack analytical details about the consequences of the existing age structure, and do not call the attention of Senior Management in DESA and OHRM at Secretariat to the likely impact of the age structure. Often these reports are submitted either for the purposes of "information" or "taking note of" and rarely contain proposals to address age-related issues which are about to engulf Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA).

Both Catherine Pelluso and TCMS's Marie Oveissi are totally ignorant of what a Succession planning tool mean and how that affect the work of the department. For Pelluso and the entire Executive Office at DESA, "succession planning" is done as part of vacancy management, and in most cases it does not go beyond filling vacancies. Instead Sha Zukang should invest in a professional Human Resource Specialist within Executive Office - who should follow professionally the HR strategies and age structure of DESA against the particular mandate and objectives to be accomplished our Department.

Good and fresh example is that of Director of DPADM - instead of being prepared for Guido Bertucci's retirement (and failing to collect the $34,000 as established by OIOS Investigation and requested by Ban Ki-moon), DESA's EO failed to have in place a succession plan and thus being ready to replace both Bertucci (D2) and Khan(D1) right after their departure in July 2008. The lack of such detailed planning led to a leadership gap and a total chaos for the work of the division for the past nine months.

Lack of a coherent HR planning in DESA leads to major implications for a real succession and in endless process of replacing those who retire. While many now believe that such practices are "man maid" - whereby corrupt managers make "deals" with Executive Office (EO) in order to either remain in their positions post-retirement date, or micro-manage the vacancy and replacement process to ensure "continuity".

We will continue to talk about these problems..........

COMMENT: Sha Zukang's October Surprise

If indeed it is true that Mr. Sha is embarking on early retirement of a large number of Senior but incompetent staff, then this is a clear sign that he has made up his mind to tackle the most difficult of all tasks - cleaning of DESA of human garbage, the main impediment to change! 

It is well known within DESA that many of the non-performing but self-seeking staff who other than promoting their own personal agenda have had little or no intetrest in advancing the cause of DESA, have been at the centre of the mess that the organization has currently plunged itself into. 

Mr. Sha ought to be congratulated for this bold step. At the same time, I only hope that he and his colleagues who have embarked on this most difficult challenges of all do it astutely and strategically and most importantly, take the member states into confidence, especially the group of 77. In the past, unbeknown to the Group of the real reasons, many non-performing and scheming staff of DESA when faced with job threats or other initiatives that appear to risk curtailing their personal agenda, made it a habit of manupulating G77either to protect them from an impending job loss or curtailment of an activity that mey affect their personal interest. Therefore, it is absolutely key that Mr. Sha and his advisers brief fully the member states before the axe starts to fall.

Mr. Sha also needs to be equally astute in filling up the forthcoming vacant posts with the very best - here also he needs the blessings of the member states, especially those of the developed countries. In the past in more than one occassions, lobbying from developed countries seemed to have caused distortions to quality recruitment in DESA.

Furthermore, filling up of vacant posts will have to go hand in hand and be relevant to what DESA will ultimately be reformed into, as a substantive organization. It is the new subtantive portfolio of DESA that should determine who its staff would be.

In the area of technical cooperation, an important DESA activity, not only that the content of technical cooperation products will need to be redefined, preferably through a survey of developing countries (presently, technical cooperation in DESA has become by and large a condiut for holding, with some exceptions, useless meetings and workshops, thus providing free tickets for DESA staff to travel and opportunities of patronage distribution through recruitment of friends as consultants), but also its method of delivery.

I wish Mr. Sha and his reforming colleagues of DESA the very best in their reforming endeavour and look forward to seeing DESA emerge as a world class organization devoted to providing, through their normative, analytical and technical cooperation works, helpful guidance in tackling the most difficult of challenges - economic, social and governance related- that the world is facing these days, both in developing as well as in developed countries. After all, DESA is the only apex organization in UN that has the mandate to do so. Given the right people and structure, I have no doubt that DESA will rise and prove its worth.

Staff Reaction: Real face of Technical Cooperation and Management Support (TCMS)

In support of qualification of deficits of TCMS, the following may also be added:

1. Ms. Marie Oveissi, the OIC of TCMS is a book keeper by training. She has neither the educational qualifications nor the country experience (the latter is crucial to successful delivery of technical cooperation products at the country level)to deserve this post. Her promotion to this post is a direct outcome of machinations of axis of DESA patronage distribution.
   
2. Her management style is authoritative, secretive and abusive.
   
3. Although, TCMS has been established to function as a support services organization to the substantive divisions of DESA (the designated implementors of DESA Technical Cooperation projects)for the effecient delivery of technical cooperation products, Ms. Oveissi through clever manipulations has taken over execution responsibilities within her own fold - this is totally contrary to the mandate of the TCMS, a service organization cannot become an implementing agency. But that is exactly what TCMS has increasingly bcome over the years. It is also a highly staff heavy organization, but on casual scruntiny this is not easily detectable - many of its staff are hideen under the cover various bogus posts.
   

These anomalies of TCMS and machinations perpetuated by Ms. Oveissi and De Tomassi were brought to the attention of the previous USGs on numerous occassions. In case of Mr. Sha, all it can be said that clever manupulations by Ms. Oveissi and her group and other colleagues of the Executive Office have kept him away from knowing the real truth. Hopefully, submissions made through Reform UNDESA blog will draw his attention and bring to bear some serious and all encompassing reform. However, truth of the matter is that very little can be done and will be done as long as those who contribute to malfuncting of DESA continue to remain in their current position.

If any one can change DESA, it is Mr. Sha who can do it. Of all the previous DESA USGs he is the only one without any specialised interest ( for example, Desai's interst was environment and thus he spent most of his time pursuing his personal substantive intereset at the neglect of DESA organizational matters; same with Ocampo - true to his substantive interest he spent all his time on global fiscal issues and left the business of organization and management of DESA to Executive Office and TCMS head - result is today's accumulated mess)