From: Berhane Habtemariam (Berhane.Habtemariam@gmx.de)
Date: Sun Jun 20 2010 - 17:14:23 EDT
AP Exclusive: UN Africa corruption case buried
By JOHN HEILPRIN (AP)
20/06/2010
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia - The United Nations compound of high-rise buildings,
green lawns and white SUVs has been an engine of prosperity not only for
Africa's diplomatic capital but also for two senior managers, an internal
U.N. report found.
A December 2008 report by the now-disbanded U.N. Procurement Task Force says
former officials Ventzislav Stoykov and Edgar Casals each scammed hundreds
of thousands of dollars and ran outside ventures at the U.N.'s Economic
Commission for Africa.
The report obtained by The Associated Press says Stoykov manipulated bids
and cut private deals with U.N. contractors he oversaw, while Casals forged
birth certificates to get U.N. child support and used an American official
to get U.S. visas for others - a potential security risk. Both men have
denied the allegations.
As one of the last big investigations the anti-corruption task force
completed before it was forced to shutter its operations at the end of 2008,
the case illustrates the limits of the U.N.'s self-policing - which has
seriously eroded in the past year and a half - and its secrecy and
bureaucracy in handling major cases of fraud and corruption.
"Investigations have been hampered and significantly slowed by the lack of
cooperation of some parties, including vendors external to the organization,
certain counsel for staff and vendors, and staff members themselves," the
task force says in its 131-page report.
The task force recommended providing the ECA report to prosecutors in
Ethiopia and the Philippines and to U.S. authorities to review visas Casals
apparently obtained through Santiago "Sonny" Busa, a former U.S. consular
chief in Addis Ababa. No one would confirm if that happened.
But the task force case did set off a confidential U.S. criminal probe.
"This case involves an ongoing U.S. law enforcement investigation and so we
cannot comment on it," one U.S. official told AP, speaking on condition of
anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case. Busa couldn't be reached
for comment.
Few U.N. officials in the Ethiopian capital appeared to know of the ECA
report. Some said they had no evidence of misconduct in their midst.
Paul Buades, head of the U.N.'s procurement division in New York, says "the
organization was quick to act" on the task force's findings by taking
unspecified administrative actions against staff members, sanctioning U.N.
vendors and re-soliciting bids for one project tainted by the report.
Stoykov's job vacancy was posted a week after AP visited the U.N. compound,
and Casals retired in October 2007.
Between 2002 and 2007, the U.N.'s investigation division received complaints
of bid-rigging and other fraud at ECA, but nothing was done.
In 2008, the complaints were referred to the task force - created in 2006 to
head off more scandals like the $1.8 billion bilked from the U.N.'s
oil-for-food program in Iraq - and an investigation began.
Task force investigators seized documents from Stoykov's office - a first in
ECA's 50-year history. Colleagues noticed his sudden, unexplained absence.
The task force's report says Stoykov, a Bulgarian, hired two major U.N.
contractors for side projects, including a four-story building put under his
wife's name. A board he sat on approved U.N. contracts for the firms -
including a road, sewers, power, pipelines and a security wall - and he
supervised that work while he hired them privately, the task force says.
Stoykov steered a $1.2 million U.N. contract to one firm to build guard
booths, access roads, parking and a boundary wall around ECA's office
building, the task force says. The two firms told investigators they did
nothing improper.
Stoykov couldn't be reached for comment but told the task force in a 6-page
letter he "committed no crime and have not knowingly broken any rule or
regulation of the United Nations."
Casals, ECA's general services division chief, created fraudulent birth
certificates for two children not his own to claim hundreds of thousands of
dollars in bogus U.N. child benefits from 1971 to 2007, the task force says.
Its report includes divorce files from New Jersey, where Casals' ex-wife
lived, indicating the birth certificates were a fraud.
Casals put on immigration visa applications that he was the natural father
of two children claimed as dependents - providing evidence, the task force
says, he "knowingly falsified official documents and relied upon forged
birth certificates in order to obtain United States visas for these two
minors."
It says Casals, a Filipino who headed the U.N. staff union in Ethiopia, used
his job and contacts "to facilitate United States visa applications for his
business partner, girlfriend, family, friends and other unidentified
individuals seeking U.S. visas."
One of Casals' e-mails in the report says Busa was among his "tennis
buddies" and their families met most weekends.
Casals declined to cooperate with the task force but told AP by e-mail: "It
is so easy to accuse anybody who is no longer there to defend himself."
He added: "I know Mr. Stoykov. He is the one you should go after."
The ECA's multimillion-dollar expansion drew scrutiny in the U.N.'s budget
committee, whose minutes from the past two years reflect diplomats swapping
concerns about project delays and "procurement irregularities."
U.N. auditors looking into millions of dollars of recent European-funded
projects also said ECA needs stronger financial controls.
The ECA investigation was one of more than 300 the task force completed,
leading to millions of dollars in restitution, misconduct findings against
nearly 20 U.N. officials and a ban against about 50 U.N. contractors.
But the task force was dissolved before it could examine four other economic
commissions that double as regional U.N. arms. The U.N. General Assembly
decided the task force's capabilities and remaining caseload should be
transferred to the permanent investigation division.
Since the start of 2009, however, the task force's investigators have
departed and 175 leftover cases were closed or left to languish, the AP
reported in January. For more than two years, no one has been permanently
appointed to head the investigation division.
Copyright C 2010 The Associated Press.
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