The other day, I was talking to a friend who was in Sudan recently on an official trip for his company which is a global supplier for the UN. He had requested the UN staff to send him a vehicle in order to visit the city center in Khartoum. En route to the city, the driver stopped for around ten minutes, got out and made his way to a house off the road, but soon returned back to the car. Curious, my friend asked him what he had been up to? The driver replied that he had a job at gardening there and that he was done with that job for the day. Surprised, my friend then asked the driver how much he was paid for that work. The driver replied: "7000 USD!"
Wow!
This is but one of the many such accounts I have heard about the state of affairs at the UN. One of my friends from China recently visited Dubai to meet his clients. He is a supplier for goods meant for Iraq and Afghanistan to the United Nation under US control. While the actual cost of an item might be 10 USD, he is to raise a 100-1000 USD invoice for the UN. The balance amount of 90-990 USD is to be transferred to either one of several accounts in Uzbekistan or to some other country. This is how our money is regularly siphoned off by UN workers who mostly happen to be Americans or Europeans.
Make your own judgement, but it will not hurt for anyone working on UN missions in whatever country to be a little more cautious in their dealings.
My wife knew some girls from Ivory Coast whose father had been an advisor to the former President of that country. Having left the Ivory Coast, they were all now settled in another country. They too had the same kind of stories about the UN being the most corrupt organization in the world.
Some passages from Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Baghdad's Green Zone by Rajiv Chandresekaran immediately comes to mind:
My wife knew some girls from Ivory Coast whose father had been an advisor to the former President of that country. Having left the Ivory Coast, they were all now settled in another country. They too had the same kind of stories about the UN being the most corrupt organization in the world.
Some passages from Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Baghdad's Green Zone by Rajiv Chandresekaran immediately comes to mind:
A week after arriving, Foley told a contractor from Bearing Point that he intended to privatize all of Iraq's state-owned enterprizes within thirty days.
"Tom, there are a couple of problems with that," the contractor said. "The first is an international law that prevents the sale of assets by an occupation government.""I don't give a s***t about international law. I made a commitment to the president (Bush) that I'd privatize Iraq's business." (p. 140)
* * * *
"I Said, 'Yeah, isn't there something we can be doing? Planning? I mean, in my experience it takes years to plan programming and structure for a new TV and radio station"'No. No. we got a few people that will be buying equipment. We're not quite sure what we'll find when we get to Baghdad, but don't worry about it.'"When North arrived in Kuwait, he took stock of the equipment that SAIC had purchased. There were thirteen tripods, but all lacked a base plate upon which a camera could sit. The receiver for satellite transmissions did not have a power cord. Nothing had instruction booklets. "It was like they bought everything from a flea market in London," North said. (p. 146).
* * * *
"We started with a number and built down," he recalled. "It wasn't the way I had ever assembled a budget before. It was, 'You have $5.7billion. Now fill in the blanks.' It wasn't a very smart approach." There wasn't much time for Browning to consult with his Iraqi counterparts or international experts. Oliver needed the plan in a week.Andrew Bearpark, a veteran British post-conflict reconstruction specialist who was the CPA's director of operations, has a bad feeling about the supplemental. "The planning process was done with such secrecy and such speed that it was never going to be a particularly rational process in terms of creating projects you really needed," he said/ "We were predestined for failure. There is a rate at which you can plan these things. If you do something in five minutes that you should spend five months on, you'll cock it up." (p. 178).
A quick search on the internet gives some interesting articles about the most corrupt organizations in the world. Try typing the words, ‘most corrupt organization is UN,' and sit back for the results which would look something like the following:
Conservative Truth - World Class Corruption - Tom Barrett...
Lt. Col. Gordon Cucullu (Ret.) calls it "the most morally corrupt internationalorganization in the world." And those are just the positive comments. The UN is a worldwide...
www.conservativetruth.org/article.php?id=921 - CachedLankaWeb - Corrupt, incompetent and racist UN officials..
Ben Silva. Introduction. What is the most morally corrupt international organization in the world? Without argument, the UN has degenerated into what esteemed...
www.lankaweb.com/news/items/2010/04/07/corrupt... - Cached
The United Nations : Corrupt, Ineffective, Dangerous
The United Nations is a weak and ineffective ... as an advocate of one of the most corrupt and non-Christian organizations on the face of the earth - the United Nations.
www.akdart.com/un.html - Cached
Somalia: Congratulations for being the World's most Corrupt ...Officials of The UN organizations responsible for Somalia live in luxury in... The TFG is the most corrupt organization in the world and its behavior is the most...
wardheernews.com/.../27_Somalia_the_most_corrupt.html - Cached
How Corrupt Is the United Nations?How Corrupt Is the United Nations, scandals, united Nations, relief funds ... But as a practical matter, the organization has behaved for the most part as a spectator.
www.canadafreepress.com/2006/rosett040406.htm - Cached
Most corrupt country in the world? Somalia, says Transparency...... Corruption Perceptions Index, Somalia is the world's most corrupt ... dependent on food aid for survival, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organization
www.csmonitor.com/World/Africa/Africa-Monitor/2010/1026/... - Cached
The UN: Corruption JunctionBut only if the question is ‘what is the most morally corrupt international organization in the world?' Without argument the UN has degenerated into what esteemed...
www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1162171/posts - Cached
The Incompetent & Corrupt United NationsThe Incompetent & Corrupt United Nations. The idea... Most people are familiar with the "U.N.... stop supporting Kofi Annan and this corrupt organization...
users.mikrotec.com/~dcgay/corruptun.htm - Cached
Do you think we the U.S. should withdraw from the most corrupt...[Nov 1, 2010] Do you think we the U.S. should withdraw from the most corruptorganization on the planet the U.N.... Strong believer in the old saying "Get the US out of the UN and get the... by Jamison F (14 comments)
answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101101111651AA0mBC2 - Cached
Is the U.N. Corrupt?Is the United Nations a corrupt organization? The question - and answers from some top officials ... much, methinks - arises out of a discussion about one of the most...
www.nysun.com/foreign/is-the-un-corrupt/69431
There are many other sites that can be checked up on the internet for similar information. What I have mentioned above form but a few. The UN's Oil-for-Food programme is yet another example of the corrupt practices at the UN. Clearly, all limits have been breached, with the UN playing with millions of human lives in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and elsewhere. However, it might still not be too late to restructure or reintegrate the UN. The President of Iran had once proposed the removal of the veto power now confined to a few developed nations, and its reinvestment with the majority. Justice from the United Nations might still be a possibility then.
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