Who'd have thunk it?!
The multibillion-dollar procurement business of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the U.N.’s flagship anti-poverty agency, is a gigantic shambles, according to UNDP’s own investigators.
Gee. Imagine how much more thorough the investigation would've been from an impartial, outside auditing agency? But, I digress.
So, how malignant is the corruption in the UNDP? Let me count the ways:
1) overwhelmed by its caseload
2) poor record keeping & purchase planning
3) $595 million worth of non-existent purchases were recorded, but no payments
4) almost non-existent competitive bid process
5) amateur purchasing agents flub million dollar construction & high-tech contracts
6) procurement over-sight brass shackled w/ conflict of interest (surprise!)
7) and it goes on and on and on (It's the UN. What'd you expect?)
Even more ominously, the same auditors point out that UNDP:
— has no sure way of knowing whether it is doing business with organizations that the U.N. itself has condemned for terrorist ties and says UNDP country offices find the current manual system of cross-checking with U.N. terrorist sanctions lists to be "cumbersome and inefficient";
— has no formal policy for suspending or removing vendors for poor performance or corruption;
— and doesn’t ask new vendors for the identity of their owners or other corporate ties. This raises the possibility that vendors caught out for corruption or poor performance could simply switch names and reapply for approved status.
The auditors also declare that at the time of their report, a staggering 260,000 vendors registered with UNDP were considered "inactive," meaning that the names existed, but the vendors were not seeking UNDP business — at least under those names.
Nor does UNDP policy, the auditors say, require detailed background checks on vendors unless "the contract amount is expected to exceed $1 million."
All of those observations, and many more almost as damning, are contained in a confidential draft audit report prepared by UNDP’s own Office of Audit and Investigations, or OAI, and embellished with comments by UNDP’s top management as of April 18. A redacted version of the draft report was obtained by FOX News.
Like I said: Imagine how much more thorough the investigation would've been from an impartial, outside auditing agency?
Hey, Mav! Maybe that League of Democracies ain't such a bad idea after all. Just make sure it contains a mandatory 'raze the U.N. building' in its charter!
