Posted on 04/01/2005 7:37:25 PM PST by NormsRevenge
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - The embattled head of the United Nations' internal watchdog on Friday bitterly criticized a decision to launch an outside review of allegations that he showed favoritism in recruiting and promoting employees.
Dileep Nair, head of Office of Internal Oversight Services, released a statement saying he was the victim of a smear campaign by the U.N. staff union designed to discredit his office.
The favoritism charge is separate from a complaint made against Nair earlier in the week by the independent committee probing allegations of misconduct in the world body's defunct oil-for-food program in Iraq. That report said Nair paid an employee with money from the $64 billion program although the staffer's work was not directly involved in the plan.
Nair denied that, saying he got approval for the hiring and also disputing that the employee did no work on the oil-for-food program. But U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan's chief of staff said Nair would be disciplined.
Reacting to the new investigation into the favoritism allegations, Nair noted that Annan accepted the conclusion of a probe late last year that cleared Nair of charges leveled by the U.N. Staff Council, the executive body of the U.N. staff union.
In a Nov. 15, 2004, letter released Friday by Nair, Annan told him: "The investigation found that no staff regulations or staff rules were violated in the appointment and promotion of staff in OIOS."
But last month, Annan's chief of staff, Mark Malloch Brown, sent Nair a letter saying the secretary-general would request an external inquiry in light of an "extended controversy" within the United Nations about the allegations, including claims that an earlier "desk review" had "improperly cleared" Nair of wrongdoing.
U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq said the secretary-general's office would not comment because an investigation was pending.
Nair's nonrenewable five-year term ends April 23. It is not clear how he would be disciplined if the investigation extended beyond that date.
When it rains, it pours.
We need to turn up the heat on all the High Potentates of the most unassailable UN.
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