Yesterday, former U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker released the findings of his committee’s 1-year, $30 million investigation into the UN’s $64 billion Oil-for-Food-Programme. Unfortunately, the 1000-page report merely detailed facts about corruption at the UN that were sufficiently exposed by international newspapers over a year ago. And, it only echoed insights into the UN’s culture of corruption that I offered in my own commentaries on this scandal dating back to February of this year.
Indeed, the findings of the Independent Inquiry Committee can be summarized as follows:
The United Nations is beset by serious instances of “illicit, unethical and corrupt behavior” all of which have been abetted by “egregious lapses” in leadership at all levels within the organization.
Of course, the opening sentences of my commentary from 22 March 2005 said as much:
The United Nations is one of the most disunited, corrupt and ungovernable organization in the world. And, if its leader were held to the minimal standards of governance required of leaders at charitable organizations in the United States, he would have already been indicted on a battery of criminal and civil offenses.
The only uncertainty was (and, alas, remains) whether or not UN Secretary General Kofi Annan would do the honourable thing and resign to preserve what little is left of his personal and professional integrity. It is instructive, therefore, that in his first statement on the committee’s report, Annan vowed to “take personal responsibility for the failures of the oil-for-food programme” but gave no indication that he now felt honour-bound to resign. This, despite the report’s finding that he is an incompetent ditherer though not an intentional thief (like his son Kojo whom it accuses of trading on his Daddy’s name to extract hundreds of thousands of dollars from contractors doing business with the UN.)
United Nations Headquarters in New York City: Central command where the report claims the former director of the oil-for-food programme UN Under-Secretary Benon Savan lorded over an international kick-back scheme.
Even more anticlimactic than its catalogue of misdeeds, however, was the committee’s assignment of blame for this multi-billion scandal. Because, Volcker & Co simply dispensed the tried and true canard for unaccountability in all corrupt organizations: blame everyone but fire no one! In fact, the report incubates Annan’s incompetence by citing “systemic failures” within the UN and blames its Secretariat, Security Council and General Assembly (all 191 member nations) for the labyrinthine dysfunctional bazaar the organization has become.
(Incidentally, it should come as no surprise that this is the same canard the Bush Administration is now deploying to avoid accountability for the Hurricane Katrina tragedy.)
The committee did offer the “unambiguous” conclusion that the UN “requires stronger executive leadership, thoroughgoing administrative reform and more reliable controls and auditing.” And, it recommended that a chief executive (enforcer) be appointed to keep an eye on its tenured crooks.
Ultimately though, notwithstanding the crimes outlined in this report, no one will do time. Moreover, since the very incompetents at the UN who allowed this criminal enterprise to flourish are the ones the committee now calls upon to implement its recommended reforms, the organization seems in no danger of becoming properly managed and accountable anytime soon.
If you’re a masochist, click here to read the report in full…. (Adobe Acrobat Reader required)
Note: As my previous commentaries delineate, my call for Annan’s resignation stems primarily from his egregious lapses in leadership that enabled UN staffers to rape and abuse refugees they were commissioned to protect; and lapses that countenanced the tribal killing and starvation of millions of Africans all because, by his own admission, he “failed to sound the alarm soon enough.”) Indeed!
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