Even They Can’t Cover Up The Fraud
How ragingly bad must the fraud be if even the United Nations can't hide it from an internal investigation? A UN group has determined that there is widespread, pervasive fraud in the UN's peacekeeping operations. The fraud they admit to runs into hundreds of millions of dollars (and heading north rapidly) and 10 UN procurement officials have been charged with offenses so far. And they are not even finished investigating yet.
UNITED NATIONS — A U.N. task force has uncovered a pervasive pattern of corruption and mismanagement involving hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts for fuel, food, construction and other materials and services used by U.N. peacekeeping operations, which are in the midst of their largest expansion in 15 years.
In recent weeks, 10 procurement officials have been charged with misconduct for allegedly soliciting bribes and rigging bids in Congo and Haiti. It has been the largest single crackdown on U.N. staff malfeasance in the field in more than a decade
The task force has issued a series of public and confidential reports charging that corruption has spread from U.N. headquarters — where three officials have been convicted in bribery schemes — to the far reaches of its growing peacekeeping efforts. The task force has also cast a spotlight on the United Nations' repeated failure to take action against officials long suspected of wrongdoing, allowing them to carry out criminal schemes in one U.N. mission after another.
"The task force identified multiple instances of fraud, corruption, waste and mismanagement at U.N. headquarters and peacekeeping missions, including ten significant instances of fraud and corruption with aggregate value in excess of $610 million," said one report by the task force, headed by a former federal prosecutor in Connecticut, Robert Appleton.
The new corruption cases highlight the limits of reforms imposed since the early 1990s, when a previous buildup of peacekeeping missions led to reports of rampant corruption in Cambodia, Somalia and the Balkans. In response, in 1994 the United Nations created the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), but it has a poor record of holding corrupt officials to account.
Yet people insist on trusting the United Nations with the global economy? There is a definition of insanity that applies here. Why in the world have we not shut this sickeningly corrupt organization down or withdrawn from it?
Why do people trust the IPCC at this point? If they can be this corrupt and inept over a relatively straightforward program, how can you trust them on an enormously complex subject like the global environment?
Civilization, Crime, Economy, Energy, Environment, World news | Gaius December 18, 2007
By martian, December 18, 2007 @ 1:09 pm
How can you trust them on anything? Instance after instance of corruption, bribery, malfeasance, etc. comes to light with that UN bunch. The UN is comprised of a bunch of un-elected elites that consider themselves entitled to whatever graft they can get their hands on. In many cases, graft and financial malfeasance are an ingrained part of the culture in their home countries – nothing there gets done unless one “greases the wheels” so to speak. They are just not a trustworthy group.
By Quilly Mammoth, December 18, 2007 @ 9:46 pm
Not to mention the latest sex scandal in Haiti.