UN to better protect staff whistle-blowers says Annan

Kofi Annan

UNITED NATIONS - The United Nations, hit by a number of scandals, plans to revise its rules to better protect whistle-blowers, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said.

Annan told a news conference the world body was looking for ways to make senior managers more accountable, and said, "we are also taking measures to strengthen the protection of whistle-blowers."

A major investigation is under way into allegations of corruption in the defunct oil-for-food programme for Iraq, and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees was embroiled in a scandal over accusations of sexual harassment.

New Zealander Dr Andrew Thomson, a UN medical officer for 12 years, is also embroiled in a whistle-blower scandal, after he and two other UN employees co-wrote a book about their frontline experiences with UN peacekeeping forces.

In the book, Emergency Sex and Other Desperate Measures, the trio reported on genocide in Rwanda and Bosnia, mass rapes in Liberia, election fraud in Haiti, dysfunctional UN security in Somalia and what they say is endemic financial corruption.

Dr Thomson's contract with the UN has not been renewed and he will lose his job at the end of the month.

He claims the job loss is connected to his criticisms of UN failures, and his case has been taken up by a powerful whistle-blower group.

However Annan said jobs would be safe for staff members who had been instructed to provide any information they might have about the oil-for-food affair.

This was a special arrangement as part of the investigation led by former US Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker.

But existing staff rules do not specifically address the possibility of reprisals against whistle-blowers. This was something UN officials said would be tackled, although the initiative was expected to take several months.

At the same time, Annan denied charges by a staff group that UN employees had been hesitant to provide information to an internal inquiry into sexual harassment allegations against the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers.

The inquiry supported the charges against Lubbers and recommended disciplinary action. But Annan cleared the official, concluding the charges were legally unsustainable.

Addressing the possibility of reprisals for those who testified in that incident, Annan said the inquiry heard from "lots of staff, and I did not get the impression that the staff were intimidated".

Two lawyers for UN whistle-blowers told a news conference last week that they had advised "five or six" UN employees with evidence of wrongdoing in the oil-for-food programme to keep it to themselves or risk losing their jobs, due to a lack of protection in the UN staff rules.

Annan said this surprised him. From what he knew, he said, "staff are co-operating with the (Volcker) commission."

"In fact, they are under instructions to co-operate and provide any information," he said. "If they did, they were not going to be victimised."

- REUTERS