PRESS BRIEFING BY OFFICE OF INTERNAL OVERSIGHT SERVICES

PRESS BRIEFING BY OFFICE OF INTERNAL OVERSIGHT SERVICES

The Annual Report of the Office of Internal Oversight Services was a quantum leap over previous years and the results of its work were apparent in a projected savings of $58.5 million this year if recommendations were implemented, said Dileep Nair, Under-Secretary-General for Internal Oversight Services.  He was briefing correspondents this afternoon on today’s release of the Report.

This, the seventh Annual Report of the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), was different from previous years in two fundamental ways, he continued.  First, it contained not only statistical information on the Office’s oversight activities but also assessments on how well recommendations had performed after implementation.  Secondly, the recommendations in the report had now been classified and those most critical to the Organization’s improved functioning had been identified. 

Overall, he said the Office had made 2,000 recommendations in the one-year period ending 30 June that was covered by the report.  Those had centred largely on strengthening internal controls and improving management performance, with 27 per cent classified as critical to improving the Organization’s functioning.  As of August this year, more than half of the general recommendations and 46 per cent of the more complex critical ones had been implemented.  The combined savings and recoveries occurred in the priority areas for oversight services, or those areas that were at high risk for problems to occur.

He said those areas included peacekeeping, humanitarian and related activities, human resources management, procurement and problems associated with establishing new bodies.  The recommendations based on audits, inspections and investigations addressed such problems as inefficiency in management, bottlenecks in administration, poor deployment of staff or improper use of resources.  Improvements were in the form of cost effectiveness and increased accountability, efficiency, transparency and better management.  The special focus for the Report period had been on evaluating the performance of population and sustainable development programmes.

Highlighting the Office’s work during the report period, he mentioned an OIOS-led multinational task force that had helped Kenyan authorities arrest nine individuals in a scheme to defraud refugees seeking help at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) branch office in Nairobi.  In Kosovo, an audit of organizations partnering with UNHCR had identified recoveries totalling $4.5 million, of which $2 million had already been recovered.  In peacekeeping overall, the Office's recommendations had increased the transparency of recruiting for missions and could save $45 million a year by reducing the inflated subsistence allowances for some missions.  In Vienna, an inspection of the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention had identified needed improvements in management.

In addition, he said, OIOS had continued over the year to implement reforms within itself to better target resources and meet the broad geographical

and contextual demands placed upon it.  The focus of the reforms was to improve synergies and increase the Office's value-added benefit to the Organization.  That came about from conducting oversight activities in a balanced, objective partnership with client bodies and Member States.

A correspondent asked why management reforms continued when they had been going on for years.  "What's the problem?" he added.  The Under-Secretary-General said there was no problem, it was just that the United Nations was no different from any other large bureaucracy.  Systems and operations could always be improved.  The quality of management could be improved and misconduct cleared up.  As in every organization, there were some bad apples and some bad practices.  The important difference since OIOS had come into existence was that a culture of accepting oversight had developed in the Organization, adding to the overall integrity, accountability and transparency of its operations.

Asked to elaborate on the cases of misconduct the Office had investigated, Mr. Nair said that the Office could not report on cases in which the investigation was still open.  In the Nairobi incident, the accused had already been charged in open court.  The case was awaiting higher court action.  In the investigation of the Vienna Drug and Crime Office, two reports had already been submitted and a third was waiting to be tabled with the Fifth Committee (Management and Budgetary).  A review towards that end would hopefully be done by year's end.  The management lapses in Vienna had already come to attention by the time OIOS began its investigation.  They had included a management style that was too centralized and arbitrary.  Overall morale had been so bad that a serious overhaul had been required.

Asked to comment on the claim that the Vienna Office management style had evolved to circumvent the cumbersome United Nations bureaucracy, Mr. Nair said an arbitrary and unpredictable system with no accountability would work anywhere.             

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