Ultimately Nefarious and UN-accountable

A former Dutch Cabinet Minister, Ms. Herfkens refuses to repay the USD 250,000 rental subsidy for her apartment that she "mistakenly" received when employed at the UN In New York. Well, we all have heard of UN officials' extravagant lifestyle, but here is a nice twist to this case. Ms. Herfkens was employed as a special advisor to Kofi Annan for, you guessed it, fighting poverty on a USD 160,000-per-annum payroll on top of notoriously fat UN fringe benefits! To make this even more ironic, the hedonistic poverty fighter is a staunch Socialist, a PvdA member.

Through a University friend of mine who works in a UN commission I have met quite a number of former employees of various UN commissions and international organizations like the ILO, the IFO and so on. All of them, with no exception, had quit after a few years, all universally stating a "complete disillusionment in the content of the job" as a reason. Everybody says that the pay was incredibly good but to go on with the job would mean selling out your conscience wholesale.

Another friend of mine worked for the UN-AIDS in Switzerland for a few years. In the beginning I remember him very upbeat about his intention to get the system working. Years of uphill struggle later, he returned to his original occupation as a practising medical doctor. His comments about the UN cannot be published here as Blogspot.com objects to strong language.

Graft and corruption permeate all the levels of this obscenely expensive mastodon, just remember how Kofi Annan's shady dealings with the UN's 65-bilion Food For Oil programme in Iraq were exposed. He managed to get away with it scot-free and there is no doubt that the big time bonanza will continue for years to come.

It is truly sad that the very organization supposed to bring peace, justice and prosperity to the world is busy pigging out on public funds, offering precious little performance in return. They monitor world affairs, but who will monitor the monitors?