DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
Press Briefing
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING OF OFFICE OF SPOKESMAN FOR SECRETARY-GENERAL
19970102
FOR INFORMATION OF UNITED NATIONS SECRETARIAT ONLY
Fred Eckhard, Acting Spokesman for Secretary-General Kofi Annan, said at today's noon briefing that the Secretary-General had arrived at Headquarters at 10 a.m.
Mr. Eckhard said the Secretary-General had immediately taken charge of his office and announced the following provisional appointments to that office: Chef de Cabinet, Iqbal Riza; Director, Political Affairs, Rolf Knuttson; Director, Economic and Inter-Agency Affairs, Patrizio Civili; Executive Assistants, Elisabeth Lindenmayer and Shashi Tharoor; Acting Spokesman, Fred Eckhard; and Senior Officers, Lamin Sise and Diego Zorrilla.
Mr. Eckhard said the Secretary-General hoped to complete the composition of his executive office by the end of January. His intention was to retain a number of the existing staff.
The Secretary-General was most appreciative of the offers of resignation from his senior colleagues, Mr. Eckhard said. Confirming correspondents' reports last week, he said that the Secretary-General had requested in writing the resignation of all Assistant Secretaries and Under-Secretaries-General, except those of which he did not have 100 per cent control, such as the heads of agencies whose executive boards had a role in their nominations. The Secretary-General also did not want to interrupt the continuity of the work being done in United Nations field missions, so he had exempted those Assistant Secretaries and Under-Secretaries-General who had peace-keeping or peacemaking good offices missions in the field. He had received the resignations of all 23 senior officials concerned and those would become effective in 30 days.
Continuing, Mr. Eckhard said the Secretary-General's intention was to establish a team that was competent, experienced and dynamic. He hoped to complete his senior appointments by the end of February.
An important part of the exercise, he said, would be the establishment of a mechanism and a process to address the issue of reform of the United Nations system, to which the Secretary-General attached great priority. The objective of the exercise would be to establish first, what the business of the United Nations should be, and how to reposition the Organization for the future. Administrative processes should be streamlined for more efficiency and effectiveness. The administration was aware of several reform proposals that had been made in the past 10 years. The task now was to review them, decide upon the most feasible package and begin implementation without delay. The role of governments in arriving at an early consensus on that pressing issue would be a paramount requirement, he added.
The Acting Spokesman said he had distributed earlier the Secretary- General's appointments for the day, among which was a meeting with Ambassador Hisashi Owada (Japan), who was the President of the Security Council for the month of January. Also available was a list of the new members of the Council for 1997.
On contributions to the Organization's regular budget, Mr. Eckhard said that the Federated States of Micronesia had become the first Member State to become current for 1997 with a payment of over $106,000. In 1996, 98 Member States had paid their dues in full, compared with 94 in 1995.
He also said today's Journal had a schedule of meetings of the various working groups of the General Assembly for the period from January to June.
Asked what he meant by "provisional" appointments, Mr. Eckhard replied that the Secretary-General needed to move from his transitional team to a staff, but was not prepared to announce the appointments as final. "Most likely, they will be", he added. As regards remuneration for the 23 senior officials who had submitted their resignation, effective 30 January, when final decisions might not be made until end of February, he told a correspondent that administrative arrangements would have to be made to keep them on the payroll until a final decision was made. In the meantime, the same contracts might have to be extended for a short period. He did not want to discuss individual cases, he told a correspondent.
Asked whether the Secretary-General would have a special committee to work on United Nations reform, he said the Secretary-General would have a special adviser on reform and in addition, he would seek counsel from outside advisers.
Mr. Eckhard explained that there were two categories of reform, the most important one was what governments said they wanted the United Nations to do, something that the Secretary-General could not legislate or decide on. His first job -- the political one -- was to "nail down" governments to some essential agreement on what the Organization was to be. That meant establishing priorities, and then rearranging the administration and adjusting finances to do the job. "It starts first with an agreement among governments. It has been 10 years since they had been considering these various reforms. It's time now to make a decision, and he'll like this decision made in the early days of this administration." Asked how that would be done, he said the Secretary-General would work one-on-one and with regional groups until it was achieved.
A correspondent asked whether some of the senior officials who were leaving in 30 days would be given new contracts or whether the resignations were "a clean sweep and they are all going to go". Mr. Eckhard replied: "I can tell you, it's not a clean sweep, but the number is 23. His final decision will be made by the end of February."
Daily Press Briefing - 3 - 2 January 1997
He was then asked whether the Secretary-General would respond to the invitation of United States Senator Jesse Helms, Chairman of the United States Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to have coffee with him in Washington, D.C. He said the Secretary-General would respond to an invitation from the executive branch of the United States Government. A number of governments had already invited him to visit their countries, but nothing had been scheduled yet. The Secretary-General could travel in January and correspondents would be informed accordingly as soon as some of the invitations were accepted and scheduled.
Replying to a question on a possible visit to Washington, D.C., Mr. Eckhard said the Secretary-General would accept an invitation from the United States Government through the administrative branch, and when in Washington, he would, of course, accept an invitation from members of Congress to meet with them. The United Nations dealt with administrative branches of governments, and with the United States Congress through the administrative branch.
Would the Secretary-General respond directly to the invitation of Senator Jesse Helms? a correspondent asked. Not necessarily, but it might be done in consultation with the United States administration, Mr. Eckhard replied.
Another correspondent asked whether the invitations the Secretary- General had received so far included one from the United States. "Yes, although a date has not been specified", Mr. Eckhard said. He explained that in a telephone conversation between the Secretary-General and United States President William Clinton, the idea of a visit to Washington, D.C., early in Mr. Annan's term had been raised by the President.
Did the Secretary-General have a statement on the shooting of innocent Palestinians by an Israeli soldier yesterday in Hebron? a correspondent asked. The Secretary-General had made a statement yesterday to a single newspaper and had nothing further to add, Mr. Eckhard said. The thrust of the statement was that those seeking to negotiate a long-term peace agreement in the Middle East should not be sidetracked by the actions of a radical few.
Asked when the conversation between the Secretary-General and President Clinton had taken place, Mr. Eckhard said he believed the conversation had taken place on the day of Mr. Annan's appointment, but he would have to check.
Asked which officials had had their contracts extended by the outgoing Secretary-General, Mr. Eckhard said he would not discuss individual cases. "There were a handful of contracts that were extended and the incoming Secretary-General felt that the fairest way to deal with that situation was to ask for the resignation of every one so that he had maximum flexibility to make the decisions he wants to make on staffing." In response to further questions, Mr. Eckhard reiterated that as of today, the Secretary-General had received 23 letters of resignation -- all those that he had requested.
Daily Press Briefing - 4 - 2 January 1997
In reply to a question about the names of outside advisers on United Nations reform, Mr. Eckhard said he was not, at this point, authorized to give out the names of the people the Secretary-General had been talking to on the subject.
Was the post of a special adviser on reform a new one? a correspondent asked. Mr. Eckhard said it was not, and that the previous Secretary-General had someone in that role. The new administration was not yet ready to make an announcement of such an appointment.
Would the Secretary-General fill all 23 posts or keep some vacant? a correspondent asked. Mr. Eckhard said the Secretary-General would eliminate some. His intention was to reduce wherever he could, both the size of the staff and the cost of doing business.
Still on the question of reform, Mr. Eckhard said the preference of the Secretary-General was to take a fresh look at the issue and determine what needed to be done to achieve those objectives, which would have to be defined by governments. He could restructure the bureaucracy in order to carry out reforms. "It's not going to be easy to get that consensus. If it were easy it would have happened by now, but it would be the primary focus of his work", he added.
What kind of mechanism could be used to forge that consensus? a correspondent asked. Mr. Eckhard said a General Assembly resolution would be the preferable way to do it, adding "in that way, you'd have on the record exactly what it is that governments agreed to. I'm not saying that it must be that way."
In response to a comment by a correspondent that the issue had been discussed for a long time, Mr. Eckhard recalled that in the 1980s the General Assembly approved a specific group of recommendations by the so-called Group of 18, which was set up to review the United Nations administrative and financial functioning. That was a coherent blueprint on what should be done. Since then there had been other studies; the new administration was looking for a comprehensive blueprint.
[The General Assembly on 18 December 1985 adopted resolution 40/237 by which it established the Group of High-Level Intergovernmental Experts to Review the Efficiency of the Administrative and Financial Functioning of the United Nations. The Group, chaired by Tom Vraalsen (Norway), made a number of specific recommendations covering the structure of the Secretariat, measures regarding personnel, monitoring, evaluation and inspection, and planning and budget procedures.]
Asked whether there could be a special session of the General Assembly on reform of the Organization, Mr. Eckhard said he could not speculate on that.
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