Another Black Eye for the UN

Several internal audits by one of its own agencies reveal that the UN has wasted tens of millions of dollars in its "peacekeeping operations" in Sudan over the past three years.

Follow this link to the original source: "Audit of U.N.’s Sudan Mission Finds Tens of Millions in Waste"

The UN Security Council established its mission in Sudan in March 2005, under the guise of helping to settle a 22-year-old civil war that has left 2 million dead, leaving tens of thousands, if not millions, homeless and hungry.

Earlier this month, the Washington Post obtained a copy of a confidential audit from October 2006 where "a number of potential fraud indicators and cases of mismanagement and waste," were noted by the UN Office for International Oversight Services, the UN agency conducting the audits. Irregularities that have been identified so far include:

• Thousands of food rations being lost to theft and spoilage.
• Millions of dollars being wasted by renting warehouses that were never used.
• The unnecessary expenditure of $1.2 million used for booking blocks of luxurious hotel rooms for UN staffers that were never used.
• A UN agent is accused of steering a $589,000 contract to Radiola Aerospace for solar airport runway lights when the company helped his wife obtain a student visa.
• Two senior procurement officials, one U.S. citizen and one from New Zealand, are charged with misconduct for not complying with rules designed to prevent corruption.
• A $200 million contract with Eurest Support Services, a British catering company, is being examined, as the company has already been charged with rigging bids in three different African countries.
• One contract to supply gravel for peacekeeping barracks was described in the audit as "exorbitant."
• Over $9 million in unnecessary fees went to a Canadian company, Skylink Aviation, by releasing it from its obligation to fulfill a contract.
• Another $9 million was wasted by hiring a company to clear UN goods through customs instead of UN staffers doing the job.

Now, for the excuses: