UNITED NATIONS BECOMING UNATTRACTIVE PLACE TO WORK, FIFTH COMMITTEE TOLD AS IT CONTINUES DISCUSSION OF ORGANIZATION"S COMMON SYSTEM

Press Release
GA/AB/3325

UNITED NATIONS BECOMING UNATTRACTIVE PLACE TO WORK, FIFTH COMMITTEE TOLD AS IT CONTINUES DISCUSSION OF ORGANIZATION’S COMMON SYSTEM

Committee Also Takes Up Secretary-General’s Report on Internal Oversight Office Activities

The United Nations was becoming an unattractive place to work, the Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) was told this morning as it continued its discussion of the United Nations common system.

The President of the Federation of International Civil Servants Association, Bernard Grandjean, added that salaries were not competitive with the private sector, other intergovernmental bodies or the foreign services of industrialized countries. Rather than following the United Nations Charter, demands for rationalization and cost-cutting had resulted in solutions that had the sole merit of reducing staff costs. At the same time, the problem of recruitment and retention of staff had now become acute.

The quest for savings had changed the way the United Nations operated from good global employer to corporate entity, the President of the Coordinating Committee for International Staff Unions and Associations of the United Nations System, Mehri Madarshahi, added.

The financial crisis had forced management to downsize and to undermine staff entitlements, while the United Nations braced itself to face the tasks and the challenges of a new century, she said. Not only were current salaries not competitive, but the latest changes to the method of determining General Service salaries seemed designed to extend a salary freeze well into the next millennium.

The United States had no objection to the basis on which the International Civil Service Commission recommendation for an increase in the base salary for staff had been made, its representative stated. However the adjustment could not be made without cost and there were financial consequences for the United Nations budget. The United States would not agree with the outcome unless the entire cost could be absorbed into a budget level based on zero nominal growth.

The representatives of China, Ukraine, Japan, Republic of Korea, Algeria and Tunisia also spoke on that item.

The Chairman of the International Civil Service Commission, Mohsen Bel Hadj Amor, responded to issues raised, and the Under-Secretary-General for the Office of

Fifth Committee - 1a - Press Release GA/AB/3225 19th Meeting (AM) 29 October 1999

Legal Affairs and Legal Counsel of the United Nations, Hans Corell, and the Director of the Office for Inter-Agency Affairs of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Qazi Shaukat Fareed, introduced the Secretary-General’s notes and answered questions.

The representative of Pakistan said the oversight role was important for the effective use of resources provided by Member States to the Organization, when the Committee turned its attention to Secretary-General’s report on activities of the Office of Internal Oversight Services. However, over-emphasis had been placed by the Office on its audit function. It should also examine the implementation of mandated programmes, as the General Assembly had instructed.

The pessimism revealed in the Oversight Office report’s preface would have dissipated had the Office implemented Assembly decisions scrupulously and better consulted Member States, the representative added. The allegation of micromanagement by Member States was beyond his comprehension. The role of the Assembly was established in the United Nations Charter and no attempt should be made to undermine the role of Member States.

The representatives of Finland, on behalf of the European Union, Norway, and Poland also spoke, and the Under-Secretary-General for Internal Oversight Services, Karl Paschke, introduced his annual report.

Under other matters, the representative of Portugal and the Committee Chairman, Penny Wensley of Australia, spoke.

The Committee will meet again at 10 a.m. on Monday, 1 November.

Programme of Work

The Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary) met this morning to continue its general discussion of the United Nations common system, and to take up the report of the Secretary-General on the activities of the Office of Internal Oversight Services.

The Secretary-General's report (document A/54/393) transmits the fifth annual report of the Office of Internal Oversight Services, covering activities for the period from 1 July 1998 to 30 June 1999. In a preface, the Under- Secretary-General for Internal Oversight Services, Karl Paschke, states that he is concerned about a number of general phenomena which transpired during the investigations throughout the period under review. At present, the staff- management relationship is characterized by antagonism rather than the spirit of cooperation. In addition, there is an overly critical attitude of many Member States towards the United Nations bureaucracy, resulting in numerous examples of micromanagement by the legislative organs. Problems arise because of the constantly growing number of mandates where their reduction and a new definition of United Nations priorities would be desirable. And there is a discrepancy between the expectations the world community has of the United Nations and the meagre resources it makes available to the Organization.

Mr. Paschke says the United Nations of today, moving towards the new millennium and its global challenges, is a better Organization in many respects than, say, five years ago, and enhanced oversight has played its part in that change. However, he adds, further improvement within the United Nations is still necessary in many ways.

Internal controls are not strong enough yet, he reports. Accountability continues to be blurred and misunderstood. In addition, increased delegation of authority must be effectively executed, and human resources management is in need of further reform, particularly in the areas of career development, intensified staff rotation, enhanced substantive support in respect of staff- management relations and the system of personnel assessment.

Documents management has to be systematized throughout the United Nations in order to strengthen institutional memory and document security, he states. State-of-the-art information technology remains a goal, but has yet to be achieved. The operational and psychological distance between Headquarters and the other duty stations, although somewhat shortened by the use of e-mail and by the executive committees created in the reform process, remains a problem.

The report contains sections on the priority areas for oversight: peacekeeping, humanitarian and related activities, procurement, problems in establishing new bodies, human resources, information technology and the Y2K issue. It also has summaries of major activities by oversight function, audit and management consulting, investigation, inspection, monitoring and evaluation.

It also contains annexes on significant recommendations in reports of the Office of Internal Oversight Services on which corrective action has not been completed and a list of reports of the Office of Internal Oversight Services during the period from 1 July 1998 to 30 June 1999.

(For background on the United Nations common system, see Press Release GA/AB/3324 of 28 October.)

Statements on United Nations Common System

HANS CORELL, United Nations Legal Counsel, introduced the Secretary-

General’s note proposing an amendment to the statute of the International Civil

Service Commission (ICSC). The amendment would allow participating

organizations of the Commission to seek an advisory opinion on the Commission’s

findings. The intent would be to ensure the legality of Commission decisions.

There was a need for an authoritative statement of law, he said, because executive heads of participating organizations were legally bound to give effect to Commission decisions made in the area of its competence. Once applied, these decisions could be appealed by individual staff through the United Nations and International Labour Organization (ILO) internal and Tribunal appeals procedures. On occasion, the Tribunals had decided that those decisions deprived staff of their rights, and thus decisions were overturned at great cost to the organization concerned. The ILO Administrative Tribunal had stressed the responsibility of executive heads not to implement decisions that were illegal.

Although executive heads were not permitted to implement decisions that would deprive staff of their rights, according to decisions of Member States and the Staff Rules, there was no forum to determine prior to their application whether decisions and recommendations did so, he said. The proposed panel would provide an authoritative, but not binding, statement of law on decisions.

The Commission, in its 1998 annual report, had noted with satisfaction that legal advisors of the common system were examining proposals to seek legal opinions prior to the implementation of Commission decisions, he said. However, in its 1999 report, the Commission opposed the mechanism proposed because it saw no need for such a mechanism, as few decisions had been overturned. The Commission also questioned the usefulness of non-binding decisions, objected to the cost of such a legal review and saw no precedent for this kind of action. One member of the Commission had agreed with the concept, on the condition that it only applied to those decisions and recommendations that could be appealed to the administrative tribunals and that the opinion was given within a strictly limited period of time.

The Commission’s response to the proposal was surprising, he said, in light of the motivation for the proposal, which was to assist the Commission and participating organizations in determining the legality of the Commission decisions and recommendations prior to implementation.

It was not the number of decisions that was important, but the significant cost involved when such a decision was overturned, he added. He also stressed that the panel would not be a standing body, but would only be established on a request from the Commission or executive heads, and then merely to offer an advisory opinion on a particular decision or recommendation.

The Inter-agency Affairs Office Director of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, QAZI SHAUKAT FAREED, introduced the note by the Secretary- General on the proposed review of the International Civil Service Commission. The proposal originated in the Secretary-General's reform programme, he noted. The system faced new challenges and there was a crucial need to equip it to deal with them, particularly in the area of human resources. The Secretary-General had noted these challenges were system wide and that the Commission was the main instrument for management of the common system. The review was strongly supported by executive heads in the ICSC.

The label, "a review of International Civil Service Commission", was increasingly a misnomer, he said. What was proposed was a broad policy review that would set the role and function of the Commission in the context of new challenges, and strengthen the capacity of the Assembly itself by ensuring the expert advice it received was the soundest possible and kept pace with the needs of the system and best practice.

The underlying concern was the unity and integrity of the common system, he said. The Chairman of the Commission had said he shared those objectives and concerns, and that increased the chances of an effective outcome. It was expected that the Commission would play an integral part in the review; the involvement of, and consultation with, the Commission would be essential to an effective outcome. The review would be by the General Assembly, for the General Assembly and on behalf of the common system.

LI TAIZHANG (China) said his delegation believed that the composition of the ICSC and its subsidiary bodies, as well as the staff members in their employment, should be made more representative. In the field of human resources management, the ICSC should also further strengthen its cooperation with the Secretariat.

China fully agreed with the programme of work of the ICSC for the biennium 2000-2001, which placed great emphasis on human resources management, he said. The Commission should take full advantage of its international nature to promote international exchanges and cooperation, so that advanced management experience and systems could be incorporated to improve the United Nations common system and human resources management.

An integrated human resources management framework was an important step towards a unified, scientific and rationalized system of human resources management and development for the United Nations. China believed the implementation of a human resources information policy would enable the common system to develop a modern system of databases and information for the management and development of human resources.

OLEKSII IVASHCHENKO (Ukraine) supported the recommendations of the ICSC concerning the revised procedure for determining the base/floor salary scale, the proposed parameters of the base/floor salary scale for the Professional and higher categories of staff and the corresponding staff assessment scale, and the adjustment of the salary scale for the General Service staff at Paris. Ukraine had learned with great interest of the Commission’s conclusions on the issue of post adjustment for Geneva. He favoured the maintenance of the status quo, as any option for revising the current arrangement would lead to complex legal, administrative and technical consequences.

He welcomed the assumption by the Commission of additional responsibilities on human resources management issues, and noted with satisfaction that the ICSC had already initiated discussions on a number of elements of human resources management in the United Nations system. Ukraine believed that the Commission should be actively involved in the process of administrative reform in the United Nations secretariat.

KOJI F.X. YAMAGIWA (Japan) said the framework for human resources management was one of the key issues discussed by the Commission this year. His delegation had taken note of the need for organizations to conduct the necessary consultations, and it might be timely for the Commission to propose a complete framework at the next regular session of the General Assembly. Although Japan basically endorsed the identified priorities, it would like to seek some clarification on the status of those major areas which were mentioned in the previous annual report but not included in this one –- such as recruitment, geographical balance, gender balance, training and staff development.

He reiterated his delegation’s concern about the continued imbalance of margin by grade, in particular the low levels at the D-1, D-2 levels. It also shared the grave concern about the security situation of United Nations staff members. Japan welcomed the entry into force of the Convention on the Safety of United Nations and Associated Personnel, and appealed to States which had not yet done so to become parties to the Convention as soon as possible.

COLEMAN J. NEE (United States) said that this was one of the Fifth Committee’s most important items. An effective system of benefits and allowances was the bedrock for the smooth functioning of the United Nations system. The ICSC was the mechanism Member States had chosen to ensure it rested on the best possible base of expertise. The responsiveness of the Commission to the General Assembly was a key element in the system. He was therefore disappointed with the Commission’s response to repeated Assembly requests to examine the Geneva post adjustment. The Assembly needed a statistical breakdown of what the cost-of-living adjustments would look like under the various regimes, and the Assembly could then decide.

The United States had looked forward to information on the proposed review of the Commission, he said, but the proposal made was wanting in a number of respects. The proposed terms of reference were backward looking, and seemed to ask for a critique of past performance. In addition, no reference was made to the private sector as a source of information or expertise in the area.

He asked why regional groups -– a circuitous route -– would be used to obtain Member State inputs into this enterprise. The United States had understood the review would be undertaken by a small broadly geographically- representative group of experts. It had assumed that this meant human resources and personnel management experts. The group should include private sector experts and people who had run government civil services. The proposed review should not be rubber stamped by the Fifth Committee, but should be carefully considered, and a statement of budgetary implications should be produced.

The ICSC had recommended an adjustment to the base salary scale, he said. Despite consolidation, this could not be made at no cost, as there were financial consequences for the United Nations budget. The United States had no objection to the basis on which the calculation had been made, but would not agree with the outcome unless the entire cost could be absorbed into a budget level based on zero nominal growth.

The education grant remained of concern, he said, and he wanted to be assured that it was not paid to staff living in their home country or whose children lived in their home country. The United States did not favour any extension of this allowance. There must also be specific controls on it, and he sought information assuring him that the grant was only paid to aid in the reassimilation of children into their home countries, as originally intended.

The United States shared the Commission’s concerns about the margin imbalance, he said, which was unfavourable to senior managers and made recruitment of talent at those levels difficult. It would consider the introduction of differentials on a cost-neutral basis. He noted that the Commission intended to emphasize human resources management issues, and therefore he urged that guidelines for periodic position classification audits be developed for the common system.

The United States also had reservations about the proposed amendment to the Commission statute, he added, as it appeared to seek to make institutional arrangements to deal with isolated cases.

HAE-YUN PARK (Republic of Korea) said his delegation attached great importance to maintaining high standards of efficiency, competency and integrity among United Nations staff. To recruit and retain the best quality personnel, conditions at the United Nations should be attractive and competitive, and in this regard he appreciated the positive role of the United Nations common system in providing consistency and equality.

However, the Republic of Korea was concerned at the trend that more Secretariat staff were resigning than retiring. He looked forward to the publication of the human resources framework to be submitted by the Commission next year that would hopefully address this issue. His delegation had always supported the Noblemaire principle, and felt that any change in the current methodology should be made only after a thorough review of attendant administrative, technical and financial implications.

He said his delegation also concurred with the ICSC that there did not seem to be any merit in further pursuing the question of post adjustment in Geneva. There were complex legal, technical and administrative difficulties in changing the current methodology. His delegation was also concerned that the review of the ICSC should be an integral part of the effort by the General Assembly to maintain the unity and integrity of the common system, and would follow that issue with keen interest.

DJAMEL MOKTEFI (Algeria) said there were still doubts about the approach taken in the proposed review of the ICSC -- the prior agreement of the General Assembly was necessary. In the past there had been efforts to improve the functioning of the ICSC, and reference should be made to those previous efforts. Algeria wanted to know why there was a question of reviewing the ICSC when its composition was decided by the General Assembly -- was it not for the General Assembly to tackle such a measure? Why were there no proposals for reviews of other bodies? he asked. What were the financial implications and who was going to assume those costs? How could a review group be set up on the ICSC when every year the General Assembly confirmed the status of the ICSC?

Algeria had not been consulted on the composition of the review group and might have proposed the inclusion of a specialist, he said. He wondered if the retired personalities on the review body had the necessary competence to carry out that review. On the terms of reference for the review group, were there any specific examples where the impartiality and competence of the ICSC had been called into question that might have justified the setting up of the review? he asked. Could the Joint Inspection Unit (JIU) not have done this kind of work?

Algeria also had reservations about the proposed amendment to the statute of the ICSC. Such a proposal jeopardized the independence of the Commission, to which Algeria was very attached. The new procedure contained risks; the establishment of an ad hoc advisory panel would also generate financial implications.

RADHIA ACHOURI (Tunisia) supported the statement by the Algerian delegation. Tunisia had supported the consensus in favour of the Secretary- General’s proposals on the review of the ICSC, and she wished to reiterate complete support for the Commission. She asked, however, why there had been such mystery surrounding work of the ICSC. She regretted that the note of the Secretary-General under consideration had come out very late. Tunisia wished to be informed sufficiently ahead of time.

Tunisia would have expected some information on what it was that had prompted the Secretary-General to propose such a reform of the ICSC, she said. Delegates had heard that all States had been consulted on the issue, but Tunisia had never been approached and had no knowledge of the proposed review. The review gave a limited role to the General Assembly, but it was the General Assembly that had set up the ICSC.

The review group prompted the following questions: What were the budgetary implications? What was the envisaged duration of their work? Were there precise estimates of costs? Who would be responsible for those costs? What were the criteria for selecting the members of the working group? Who had selected them? Were governments consulted or not? Were regional groups consulted or not? Tunisia also asked what was the legal status of the amendments proposed to the ICSC statute.

The United Nations Legal Counsel, Mr. CORELL, responded to some issues raised by Member States. The legal advisors group referred to previously was an informal group, he explained, and had held informal contacts with the Commission secretariat, as noted by the supporting reference to the proposed panel in the 1998 Commission annual report. The proposal being made was almost identical to that referred to by the 1998 Commission report.

The Committee should consider the proposal very carefully, he added. There was not one single solution that was the best and that would solve all problems. It was true that Legal Counsels could give advice on the legality of decisions, but the Tribunals could simply go their own way, which was one of the reasons why the inclusion of Tribunal judges in the proposed panel was important. Ultimately, judicial bodies would make the decisions anyway.

The number of cases was not the important issue, he explained, because the cost of reversing decisions was significant. In one case, the phasing-out of a language factor had been found by the ILO Tribunal to be contrary to the Flemming principle for determining the salary and conditions of General Service staff, and therefore illegal, at a cost of some millions of dollars.

The Director of the Office of Inter-Agency Affairs of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Mr. FAREED, then offered the Committee some clarifications. The Secretary-General was proposing that the General Assembly review the Commission, he explained, not that somebody else carry out the review. The Assembly could and should do whatever it decided.

The proposal was not for an inspection, or a backward looking examination, he continued. Rather it was predicated on two basic concerns. The world was changing and this affected the common system. The question must be asked as to whether the influences of change must be brought to bear on the ICSC. Secondly, many organizations wanted to leave the common system, and the Chairman of the Commission well understood the problems it was facing. The proposal had been made in an effort to protect the common system and to strengthen it through a review of the Commission.

He invited Member States to consider the proposal, but ultimately they must come up with their own ideas and find the methods that best suited their purposes. After Member States had determined the modalities they wished to employ, the Secretariat would produce the requested programme budget implications document. The individuals the Secretary-General had proposed compose the review group had agreed to perform the review pro bono, and the common system organizations had intended to bear the costs of travel and so on within their regular budgets. If the Assembly adopted the proposal but additionally requested extensive studies, for example, then there might be associated costs, and those costs would be examined and presented for Member State approval.

MOHSEN BEL HADJ AMOR, Chairman of the International Civil Service Commission, said his normal practice was to respond to questions in writing, but as the representatives of the Secretariat had made direct reference to his Commission’s statements, he wished to clear up certain ambiguities. He would also provide written answers.

Regarding the statement made about consultation with the Commission on proposed amendment to its statute, he and the Legal Counsel clearly had a divergence on the meaning of consultation. The ad hoc legal group had spent years considering the question of an ad hoc panel, but the Commission had only been shown the proposal once the document was completed. The Commission had not been asked whether it was suitable or reasonable to have such a panel. It should have been involved in the discussion from the very first day.

He knew now how the idea had been born and who had pushed it, he said. The Commission had not been consulted. Rather it had been faced with a fait accompli.

The satisfaction expressed in the 1998 Commission report was not satisfaction on behalf of the Commission but for the Administrative Committee on Coordination (ACC), he said. The Commission did not need this panel. He had believed that the intention was that the ACC would have its own body to verify the legality of decisions, and the support offered showed how generous the Commission was towards that Committee.

If the proposal was aimed at eliminating legal doubts, then there was a fault in the thinking underlying it, he said. The Commission did not need such a panel when making its decisions. It had its own legal advisor, which was, in fact, the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs. It was the Legal Counsel himself who was the Commission’s advisor.

He had been at the Commission for 18 years, he said, and he knew those who were now complaining. He did not know what the problems of the common system were that Mr. Fareed was referring to. Justification must be given for the proposed review of the Commission, rather than just “blah blah” that could be applied to any body, not just the Commission.

DJAMEL MOKTEFI (Algeria) said the Assembly and Commission had greater competence than the Secretariat on these issues and their views must be heard. He would like to be given specific answers to the specific questions he raised.

Ms. ACHOURI (Tunisia) said she supported the representative of Algeria’s statement and invited the Legal Counsel and the Director of Inter-Agency Affairs to take the questions of Member States, particularly those she had posed, very seriously. She wanted answers to those questions, backed up by information in writing.

The President of the Coordinating Committee for International Staff Unions and Associations of the United Nations System, MEHRI MADARSHAHI, said that as the financial crisis facing the United Nations grew, job security –- the backbone of the independence of the international civil service –- was being challenged. The quest for savings had shifted the Organization’s paradigm from that of good global employer to that of a corporate entity. The crippling financial crisis had forced management to downsize and undermine staff entitlements. All this had occurred while the United Nations braced itself to face the tasks and the challenges of a new century.

Currently, neither the Professional nor the General Service salaries were competitive. The latest revisions in the General Service staff methodology seemed designed to erode purchasing power and to extend a salary freeze well into the next millennium. One of the requirements of the revised methodology was that the public sector be represented by at least 25 per cent of retained employers. The Coordinating Committee considered this to be a violation of the Flemming Principle.

As for the Professional category, the salary increases granted to federal civil service employees of the United States were higher than current inflation, and also higher than those for United Nations staff at New York. As a result, the margin could go to a level of 111 or lower.

Also, based on a 1995 study, it had been established that the United States federal civil service was no longer the proper comparator service, but this finding had not been accepted for technical or political reasons, she said. The time had come for the ICSC to deal with the issue without delay, fairly and with an open mind.

The Coordinating Committee believed that United Nations career development had been replaced by career management, and that its implementation was virtually left to individual staff members. Training was de-coupled from careers and had little apparent impact on professional advancement. The current system of job performance neither provided the means for meaningful appraisal nor did it enjoy the confidence of staff. Few supervisors found it necessary to give an honest or prudent assessment.

The Coordinating Committee felt that those recruited by the United Nations should not be insulated from the outside professional world by virtue of undemocratic and old fashioned codes of conduct, she said. On the other hand, the variety of contractual arrangements without any ostensible structure or sense of purpose had given rise to unnecessary anxiety and status differentiation among contract holders. It was not always possible to know why a particular person had a certain type of contract, or whose interests were served by this.

Another issue of grave concern to staff at large was security, she said. Nearly 200 unarmed United Nations staff had been killed in the last seven years. United Nations staff had become moving targets in most conflict areas. No one could rest as long as colleagues’ rights, safety, security and well-being were in jeopardy. The international community must renew its commitment to ensuring that all possible protective measures were taken and applied for the safety of United Nations personnel. But more than 150 Member States had yet to ratify the 1994 Convention on the Safety of United Nations and Associated Personnel. She added that the Coordinating Committee had decided to resume its participation at the deliberations of the ICSC.

The President of the Federation of International Civil Servants Association, BERNARD P. GRANDJEAN, said he believed that nobody would question the need to review the ICSC. However it was necessary to define the specific procedures and objectives of the Commission. The staff wished to contribute to that. It remained deeply committed to the cohesiveness of the common system, and held great hopes for the proposed review.

The staff contribution to this process would be more significant and of greater value if certain prerequisites were met, he said. Above all, the staff must be given a say in matters, and this did not mean allowing its representatives to speak and then listening to them distractedly. It was essential that the status of staff as full participants be recognized.

The Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights of Work had been adopted by Member States last year, he said. This was a blueprint for global economy that honoured, among other things, the right of people to organize and bargain in a civil and peaceful way.

The basic human right to collective bargaining could only be applied to the Commission in a way that took account of the idiosyncrasies and traditions of the common system, he said, but respect for heritage did not exclude the real aspiration to modernize methods, and dialogue, if tense at times, always opened new vistas. It was time that the basic rights enshrined in ILO Conventions 98 and 154, repeated in the 1998 Declaration, be granted to the international civil service.

Member States had long acknowledged that Professional salaries were no longer competitive and that the current comparator was no longer the best paid civil service, he said. Salaries were not simply not competitive with the private sector but also when compared with other intergovernmental bodies and the foreign services of industrialized countries.

In addition, he said, the salaries and pensions for General Service staff were rapidly deteriorating, with the result that rather than being an exemplary employer, the United Nations system was becoming an unattractive place to work. Urgent action was required to implement Article 101 of the Charter, which said the paramount consideration in employment of staff and in determination of conditions of service was the necessity of securing the highest standards of efficiency, competence and integrity.

Rather than following this injunction from the United Nations Charter, he said, systematic and irrational demands for rationalization and cost-cutting all too often resulted in decision makers applying solutions that had the sole merit of reducing staff costs. At the same time, the problem of recruitment and retention of staff had now become acute.

One must wonder about the validity of salary surveys for General Service staff, he said, which looked more like they were the results of post facto haggling, rather than objective measurement. He recommended that Member States examine the document produced by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Staff Union on the recent Paris review.

A similar problem was on the horizon for Professional staff, he added. So many anomalies occurred in place-to-place surveys that his organization doubted it would ever be possible to correct them all. A policy of systematic transparency would be the only way to guarantee equity and conformity in the common system.

Similar problems applied with the methodology of surveys on salaries for non-Headquarters duty stations, he said, and the instances that came quickly to mind where those of stations where a currency devaluation was quickly followed by significant price inflation. The thresholds were set so high for the measures to address such changes that there were few times when they could be applied.

He noted that 95 per cent of United Nations staff who were assassinated were local staff; however, such staff continued to be subject to unacceptable discrimination by being abandoned to their fate in major crises, while international staff were evacuated. Those suspected of crimes against United Nations staff continued to act with impunity. Concrete actions, like trying such people before the International Criminal Court, were required.

The review of the Standard of Conduct of 1954, to be carried out by a working group in which his organization was participating, would require consensus on the fact that standards must be integrity–based, not compliance- based, he said. Agreement on the Code of Conduct must remain separate from agreement on the Staff Rules and Regulations, and fundamental labour rights must be spelled out. Duties and obligations of the employer (both the administration and Member States) must be identified and included in the text, and a consensus must be achieved on core values and principles. Implementation strategies must be identified for training and guidelines for the workplace, and the Code's legal status must be defined .

Statements on Oversight Office Report

The Under-Secretary-General for Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), KARL PASCHKE, introduced the annual report of the OIOS to the Committee. He said he was pleased that the independence of the OIOS had never been compromised during his tenure. His successor would inherit an OIOS that functioned well and had found its place in the United Nations system.

The total amount of savings actually recovered, as opposed to just identified, by the Office over five years had been $70 million, he said. However, the achievement indicator of which he was most proud was that of the rate of implementation, which was now more than 80 per cent -- the responsiveness of United Nations managers to OIOS recommendations had increased dramatically.

ANNA-MAIJA KORPI (Finland) speaking on behalf of the European Union, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta, said that the Oversight Office had come a long way under Under-Secretary-General Paschke’s control. Any successful oversight body must earn its credibility as a consultative partner of management and staff. The Oversight Office had reached this goal and its working methods had become an integral part of the Organization’s management culture, as well as an engine of reform.

The Union was pleased to note that increasing numbers of managers sought Oversight Office input to improve management performance, she said. The number of reports issued had steadily increased, which was evidence that the Office was firmly rooted in the system. The implementation rate of recommendations was high and this demonstrated how well-founded its recommendations were.

The Union reaffirmed the importance it attached to the independence of the Office, she said, and concurred with the level of authority delegated to the Under Secretary-General over its personnel and other resources. The Office head was appointed by the Secretary-General with the approval of General Assembly, and could only serve one fixed term, which contributed to its independence. The Office also had the freedom to select oversight objectives and to report all its findings through the Secretary-General to the Assembly. This meant that even those findings and recommendations not approved by the Secretary-General could be reported, which had happened in only a very few cases. In addition, she noted that the Oversight Office had been a catalyst for many United Nations agencies and programmes to enhance their oversight.

The Union believed there was a separate and distinct role for external and internal oversight, she said, and she welcomed the Oversight Office’s cooperation with the Board of Auditors and the Joint Inspection Unit. She expressed the Union’s deep appreciation to Mr. Paschke, particularly for his contribution to the establishment and development of the United Nations Oversight Office.

TRYGGVE GJESDAL (Norway) said his delegation had noted with interest Mr. Paschke’s observations on where the United Nations stood today, including his main finding that the United Nations was a better managed organization than it was five years ago. However, further improvement within the United Nations was still necessary, Mr. Paschke had noted, and he had mentioned that accountability continued to be blurred and misunderstood, that human resources management was in need of further reform and that operational and psychological distance between Headquarters and field duty stations remained a problem.

He shared the general concerns expressed, in particular with regard to the discrepancies between the expectations of the world community and the meagre resources it made available to the Organization. Norway noted that the OIOS had matched to a certain extent the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees’ (UNHCR) decentralization by dispatching resident regional auditors for it to Nairobi and Abidjan, as well as to Kosovo. This was a useful approach that might be applied in other regions.

Norway had also strongly supported the functioning of the Lessons Learned Unit of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, he said. He noted that although the need to create a comprehensive, indexed archive of standard mission operating procedures had been reiterated in several reports since 1994, this most basic depository of past experience had not been created and placed on the Department of Peacekeeping Operations intranet for the use of missions. The OIOS had highlighted that disappointment.

Norway was also concerned that the previous three annual reports of the OIOS had not yet been adopted, although they had now been thoroughly discussed and commented upon. Norway hoped that there would now be a consensus to take note of the present annual report, as well as its predecessors, in the same way as the Committee had recently taken note of the previous annual reports of the JIU.

AMJAD SIAL (Pakistan) said the oversight role was important for the effective use of resources provided by Member States to the Organization. However, the functions of the Oversight Office as defined by the Assembly should be performed in a balanced and effective manner. He felt that over-emphasis had been placed on the audit function. The Office should also attend to the implementation of mandated programmes, as instructed. In addition, some of its reports did not fully comply with the Rules and Regulations of the Organization and the decisions of the General Assembly.

The Committee for Programme and Coordination had stated that in some cases it had been necessary to substantially change or set aside recommendations of the Oversight Office, he said. For example, comments from the Office regarding the interaction of Department of Public Information staff and the media contradicted the Staff Rules and Regulations. There were several other examples in the Committee for Programme and Coordination report. The Oversight Office should carefully assess the Organization's Rules and Regulations and decisions of the Assembly before finalizing its recommendations, as this would increase the credibility of its findings.

He sought more information on comments on the procedure for the selection of police officers for peacekeeping missions, he said. At present, only police who had passed a language assessment in their own country were sent to mission areas. The suggestion that cheating in these assessments occurred was unacceptable.

He also sought information on the status of a recommendation that a host government be asked to repay $13 million or that this amount be offset against claims by that government. He would like clarification of the regulation or rule under which such a proposed action could be taken. United Nations staff had made payments for rent for premises that should have been provided free according to a host country agreement. The Oversight Office should focus on the important issue of exploring the reasons those payments were made when they appeared to have contradicted such an agreement. If carried out, the recommendation would mean that amounts owed to Member States and other entities for procurement and other contractual services could be offset against its assessed contributions if it could not perform its treaty obligations under the Charter. A justification for such action and a full examination were required before the action was taken.

He recalled that the Oversight office had recommended that a Rwanda Tribunal legal advisor be transferred because of his alleged financial involvement with a defense counsel, he said. However, that legal advisor had been fully exonerated by a tribunal investigation panel. In some cases, similar recommendations seemed to have been implemented without a panel investigation. Similarly, some recommendations on the United Nations Iraq-Kuwait Observation Mission Kuwait (UNIKOM) and United Nations Angola Verification Mission (UNAVEM) had subsequently proved unjustified or seemed based on incomplete information. He sought clarification to better understand the procedures for implementation of Oversight Office recommendations. In addition, he wanted to be informed of whether the administrative circular on retirees mentioned in the report had actually been issued, and whether it took account of relevant General Assembly decisions on the matter.

He had read the report’s preface with interest, he said. The pessimism it revealed would have been dissipated had Assembly decisions been implemented scrupulously and Member States better consulted. The allegation of micromanagement was beyond his comprehension. The role of the Assembly was established in the United Nations Charter and no attempt should be made to undermine the role of Member States, which provided the Organization’s resources. He would like to be shown examples of the micromanagement referred to.

The Oversight Office must comply with the decisions of the Assembly, he stated. He therefore noted with concern remarks attributed to Mr. Paschke in an account of a press briefing, where he apparently said that the Secretary- General's reforms had been stymied by legislative bodies. According to the account, he also accused the Fifth Committee of paying lip service to reform. Mr. Paschke must inform the Committee of the reasons and justification for the remarks made by him in the press conference. In that regard, he recalled that Rule 101.2 (p) of the Staff Rules and Regulations was applicable to all staff.

Lastly, while he appreciated the core savings mentioned in the report, he wanted to know whether those were also reflected in budget performance reports, he said. That had not been the case in the past.

JAN JAREMCZUK (Poland) said his delegation strongly supported the work of the OIOS, which was essential to the functioning of the entire United Nations system. He agreed with the views expressed by several delegations that the OIOS had by its vigorous performance over five years proved its immense and practical usefulness in efforts to eliminate waste and mismanagement.

It was also worth stressing, he said, that the implementation rate for audit recommendations of the OIOS in the last three years had been steadily growing up to 84 per cent at the end of the reporting period. That rate, however, did not cover the implementation of the new recommendations formulated by the Office in the last year, and the prompt reaction of the bodies concerned was still awaited.

The cost savings and recoveries resulting from the actions of the OIOS had also increased substantially, he said: one-time recoveries had reached 93 per cent and the expenditure reduction recommended by the OIOS 78 per cent. Two years ago, the figures had been 28 per cent and zero per cent respectively.

Nevertheless, he added, although a substantial improvement in overall financial and managerial performance of the majority of the units concerned had been noted, substantial irregularities discovered by OIOS were still of great concern. Poland, along with other delegations, expected remedial action to be taken without delay.

Other Matters

MARIA REGINA SERRAO EMERSON (Portugal) said that, as this was her final appearance at the Committee, she wished to say a special farewell to the other delegates, who had begun to feel like members of her extended family.

PENNY WENSLEY (Australia) Fifth Committee Chairman, thanked her and wished her well in her new assignment.

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