U.N. Ignores Its Own Procurement Ban

[bijou]

How serious is the United Nations about much-touted reform of its scandal ridden, multi-billion-dollar procurement system? To hear senior U.N. officials tell it, very serious.

But that was before FOX News uncovered the case of Corimec S.p.A., an Italian firm that sold the U.N. more than $30 million-worth of goods in 2006 (and many millions more in previous years), and which was suspended from the U.N.'s list of authorized vendors on March 15, 2007 for involvement in one of the highest-profile bribery scandals in the multi-national organization's history.

Little more than a month after the United Nations Procurement Service dropped Corimec from its vendor list, the flagship United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) decided to ignore the ban and spent more than $2.1 million on emergency housing kits from the firm. The reason: UNDP officials declared that as a legally separate U.N. agency, they were not bound to honor the Procurement Service sanction.

The fact that UNDP, a $5 billion development agency, chose to override the vendor suspension is particularly significant, because UNDP is the premier agency through which the U.N. operates on the ground in most of the 160 countries that it services. UNDP is also the lead agency in an experimental program known as “One U.N.” that is ultimately intended, ironically enough, to rationalize the delivery and efficiency of U.N. services around the world.

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http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,322470,00.html

Long article, but well worth reading if you're interested in UN corruption and inefficiency.

[Airwolf]

And Bush is the one stealing from the people?