UN staff union mulls no-confidence motion against senior UN management
1 hour, 37 minutes ago
UNITED NATIONS (AFP) - The UN staff union was meeting to discuss a no-confidence measure against senior management of the United Nations, which has been hit by a series of scandals involving top UN officials.
But sources said a planned vote could be put off until next week after UN officials asked to meet with union members to quell the uproar over a possible no-confidence vote in senior management of the world body led by Secretary General Kofi Annan. "The idea is to keep dialogue going and see if we can't sort out our differences so that it isn't necessary to adopt a resolution saying they have no confidence in senior management," Annan spokesman Fred Eckhard said. "We'd certainly like them to have more confidence in us, and we hope that we can achieve that through dialogue," he told reporters.
A draft union resolution obtained by AFP on Thursday complained of "a lack of integrity, particularly at the higher levels of the organisation," and asked to "convey this vote of no confidence to the secretary general."
The measure cites unnamed senior management but both sides, faced with heavy media scrutiny after news of the resolution broke, insisted Annan was not the prime target.
Eckhard said it was a "misinterpretation" to call the measure a no-confidence vote in Annan, even though he is the most senior official in the United Nations.
In a press release, the staff union stressed that the draft text had not yet been adopted and said that the measure did not "express the desire" for a no-confidence vote against Annan.
Sources said the immediate anger behind the resolution had been sparked by the announcement on Tuesday that Dileep Nair, the head of the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), had been cleared of wrongdoing by Annan.
Nair had faced allegations of harassment and favouritism but was exonerated after what Eckhard termed a "thorough review" of the case. Some allegations had been made in an unsigned letter, he said.
The crisis comes with Annan and the United Nations under fire over allegations of fraud and corruption in the UN program that oversaw oil sales by Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime. Annan has publicly complained of a "campaign" against the United Nations over the so-called oil-for-food program, which ran between December 1996 and November 2003.
But it also follows the exoneration in July of Ruud Lubbers, the UN's top official for refugees who had been the target of a sexual harassment complaint brought by a female member of his staff. Annan also cleared Lubbers of any wrongdoing in that case but reportedly sent him a letter conveying his "concerns" about the official's behaviour.
Eckhard, the spokesman, acknowledged the staff union was "not happy" with this week's decision on Nair, whose OIOS office functions as the UN's internal watchdog for wrongdoing, and that the question would be discussed next week. "It's been a bit of an up-and-down relationship" with the union, he said, but added: "We accept them as the legal representatives of the staff."
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