The latest UN corruption coverup

NY Times:

The General Assembly is preparing to put an early end to an in-house panel that has exposed more than $600 million in tainted United Nations contracts and is currently investigating an additional $1 billion in suspect agreements.

A budget committee of the General Assembly is scheduled to vote as early as Friday on a resolution that would force the panel to close down its operations in six months.

The effort to scuttle the panel is not a budget matter so much as a political one, and it represents the continuing suspicion developing countries have about international intervention in their affairs.

The fight has been led by one country, Singapore, which contends that a United Nations official from there has been treated unfairly in an investigation. The resolution also recommends that the panel itself be investigated for the way it has treated officials and diplomats.

In its effort to curtail the task force’s work, Singapore succeeded in winning over the powerful Group of 77, an assemblage representing the developing world that has grown over the years to 130 nations.

The threatened shutdown of what has been a penetrating inquiry comes at a time when the United Nations is still recovering from the findings of mismanagement and corruption in the oil-for-food program made by Paul A. Volcker. Mr. Volcker, a former Federal Reserve chairman, said in the 2005 report that the United Nations suffered from a “culture of inaction.”

The six-month cap would effectively finish off the investigative unit, said its director, Robert Appleton, a former assistant United States attorney in Connecticut. Mr. Appleton also served as special counsel to the inquiry into the program under which Iraq was allowed to sell some of its oil, despite United Nations sanctions, to meet the needs of its civilians.

...

What we really need is a RICO investigation of these UN operations. The thugocracies should not be allowed to skim money donated from the US and other countries to line their pockets. This action should be a badge of shame for this corrupt organization. Their pretense of offering legitimacy has been blown sky high.

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