The UN: Working 25 Hours Per Day To Better Screw You

Internal U.N. Audits Ignite Debate

Internal audits sent to the director of the Iraq oil-for-food program uncovered extensive mismanagement of multimillion-dollar deals with contractors and fraudulent paperwork by its employees, according to copies of some of the reports obtained by The Associated Press.
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An independent panel led by former Federal Reserve (news - web sites) Chairman Paul Volcker, who was appointed in April by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan (news - web sites) to investigate corruption in the oil-for-food program, was given access to the files and planned to release 400 pages of the audits Monday.

But the United Nations had refused access to congressional investigators until Volcker's panel sent them copies on Friday. A congressional aide provided the AP with copies of three of the 56 audits, including one that found that the United Nations was billed over several years for 31 days of work in June, which only has 30 days.
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A third audit on April 20, 1999, of the U.N. Office of the Humanitarian Coordinator for Iraq, the agency responsible for the implementation of humanitarian aid under the program, also revealed discrepancies in the procurement of equipment including cars, computers and furniture.

In one instance, the agency submitted invoices totaling $42,518 for furniture from a company in Jordan. The auditors determined that the "purchases had actually been made from a local vendor in contravention of sanctions," and that the price had been exorbitant.

Wow. Now, for that last item, I have a theory as to how he price was so much. Suppose the furniture actually cost about $10,518. However, the person buying the furniture says "I have an idea, why don't you charge me $42,518, and give me $30,000, and you can pocket an additional $2,000". Mind you, that's only a theory, but I wouldn't put it past the UN to try such things. Heck, as a comparison, a lot of the "aid money" from Europe to tsunami-affected areas has restrictions on it so that the aided countries can only spend that money on products from the country from which the aid came (the "aid money" is not aid money, but rather a new way for government to subsidize exports).

Is this UN stuff getting tiring to anyone else? I'm looking at it as more comedy than anything else; I don't think there is any other way to observe something like this and not go insane.