UN accused of ignoring tsunami fraud and corruption

A former UN deputy director of investigations has claimed that tsunami reconstruction funds worth 500 million dollars are being lost to fraud and corruption, as the organisation has failed to implement its own anti-fraud measures.

Melbourne, Oct 6 : A former UN deputy director of investigations has claimed that tsunami reconstruction funds worth 500 million dollars are being lost to fraud and corruption, as the organisation has failed to implement its own anti-fraud measures.

Frank Montil, a former ASIO officer, who for a decade was the deputy director of the UN's internal watchdog unit, set up to investigate fraud and corruption within the UN and its agencies, said the oil-for-food scandal "taught them nothing."

According to Montil, the fraud and corruption that had been occurring during the tsunami reconstruction period would come back to haunt the UN, for it had wilfully ignored all the warnings.

"When you have a disaster zone, you have all sorts of drifters and conmen walking in. It is the equivalent to the old gold rushes," said Montil, who was sent to the devastated areas of Indonesia after the tsunami as a senior UN investigator.

His task was to assess the risks of fraud, waste and mismanagement to the public funding that the tsunami public appeal generated, and which the UN was responsible for allocating, The Age reported.

Montil's inquiries showed that every project would automatically attract a 10 per cent premium to cater for bribes "to a variety of parties who may have an influence on whether or not a project will go ahead."

The daily said that in large infrastructure and building procurement, his team learnt there was almost always collusion between the winning company and public officials. And, if there was no government involvement, there was collusion between large contractors who operated an invisible roster.

The company that won the contract through a "fake" lowest bid inevitably overpriced it as it had already been determined it would win. It would then offer subcontracting jobs on the project to the unsuccessful bidders, Montil claimed in his report.

"These government bodies are duplicating, tripling and even quadrupling their approaches to the various foreign aid and UN agencies for the very same equipment," Montil warned the UN General Assembly in his report.

ANI