Oh. My. God.
These people are unbelievable. Their nauseating, self-regarding sanctimony is matched only by their absolutely staggering incompetence.
TSUNAMI reconstruction funds worth $US500 million are being lost to fraud and corruption because of the failure by the United Nations to implement its own anti-fraud measures.
This claim is made by the UN’s former deputy director of investigations, Frank Montil, a former ASIO officer who for a decade was the deputy director of the UN’s internal watchdog unit, set up to investigate fraud and corruption within the UN and its agencies.
$500 million, of which, what, 40% comes from American taxpayers?
Uh-oh. Look who’s name crops up.
But the report lay on the desk of the former secretary-general, Kofi Annan, for eight months, Mr Montil said.
“My estimations of fraud were that at the bare minimum in Banda Aceh alone there would be at least $US80 or $US90 million disappearing in fraud and corruption. That’s only in emergency funds. That doesn’t include the half a billion that will be lost to fraud and corruption in reconstruction funds,” he said.
You’d think that this would stir the UN out of its complacent stupor, wouldn’t you? Well, you’d be dead wrong.
When the Herald contacted the UN, a spokesman provided the General Assembly’s response to Mr Montil’s report. Tabled last December, it read in part: “The Deputy Secretary-General indicated that a number of funds and programs had expressed the view that their tsunami activities had already been extensively audited and that a further consolidated report would be superfluous.”
That, my dear friends, is what is known in the industry as a ’stonewall’. Still, I’m sure the NYT will be all over this one - the UN can run, but they can’t hide from the drive-by media!
raz0r says:
Not surprised. Just wondering how much longer we should finance this fiasco. Conservatives should be yelling about our money being wasted, the liberals surely won’t.