UNITED NATIONS: Beleaguered World Body will Spend to Save

By Thalif Deen Reprint | | Print |

Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Jul 7 1995 (IPS) - The United Nations is planning to spend about 15 million dollars to root out deadwood lying around in its Secretariat in New York.

The money is to be spent to “buy out” staffers who are either inefficient, incompetent or redundant.

“Lean and efficient staffing is one of my priorities,” says Secretary-General Boutros-Boutros Ghali.

The Organisation, which is getting ready to celebrate its 50th anniversary in October, has a staff of more than 32,000 worldwide, of which about 14,500 are based in New York.

Karl Theodor Paschke, Under-Secretary-General for Internal Oversight Services, agrees the world body is “overstaffed.”

Paschke, who heads the newly-created office mandated to eliminate waste and mismanagement, said in a recent in-house television interview that 10 to 15 percent of the staff could be cut.

“But when I say ‘cut’, I am talking about a buy-out programme,” he said. “I don’t advocate a cut that would send people out on the street. I am talking about an early retirement programme.”

However, Paschke admitted it was not “totally unrealistic” to expect more efficient and enterprising staffers to agree to the buyout and look for a job outside, while deadwood retained positions within the organisation.

This situation, he said, could be avoided because the U.N.’s Department of Administration and Management will have the final say as to who should stay and who should not.

The Secretariat says its “early separation programme” is intended to serve the best interests of the Organisation by facilitating early retirement of staff members “who find themselves not meeting career aspirations.”

“Consistent with good management and overall cost- effectiveness, the programme is designed to encourage those staff members, by means of a viable opportunity, to leave the Organisation before the normal retirement age,” says a Secretariat circular sent to staffers.

The normal retirement age at the United Nations is 60. But the rule does not apply to high ranking officials such as Assistant- Secretaries-General or Under-Secretaries-General.

Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali himself will be 73 years old in November.

Ambassador Richard Butler of Australia, chairman of the U.N.’s 50th anniversary preparatory committee, says the U.N. bureaucracy has been “designed in hell.”

“I am not saying some mad genius did this,” he said, adding that the U.N. bureaucracy was a product of the Cold War era when politics played a role in hiring practices.

Butler told reporters the six U.N. conferences held since 1990, if taken together, could constitute the new agenda for the world body.

“In addition, fix this rather clumsy and outmoded bureaucracy to enable it to do the job, and then you’ve got a new United Nations — a new agenda and a streamlined organisation — and we should be able to make a difference in the 21st century,” he said.

Butler said he was convinced that a serious reform of the United Nations has to involve a reduction in staff.

“Now, that’s not to threaten anyone with the axe. That would be preposterous. I’m not in a position to do that, and one has to be humane,” he said.

“Some people have vested interests in the existing system, which amazes me, because I don’t think it serves them well. But some people do,” Butler added.

At the U.N.’s charter ceremony in San Francisco last month, U.S. President Bill Clinton was also critical of the United Nations. “Over the years, it has grown too bloated, too often encouraging duplication and spending resources on meetings rather than results,” he said.

Clinton held out the U.S. administration as an example because it has eliminated hundreds of programmes, thousands of regulations and even reduced its government to its smallest size. “The United Nations must take similar steps,” he added.

At a press conference in Geneva on Wednesday, Boutros-Ghali said one of his first tasks as Secretary-General was to reduce by 30 percent the number of Assistant-Secretaries-General and Under- Secretaries-General.

The Secretary-General said he also reduced regular posts by about five percent and has frozen all presents posts for a two- year period.

For the next 1996-1997 biennium, he plans to reduce the U.N. budget by about 109 million dollars and abolish 140 posts in the Secretariat, Boutros-Ghali said. (EDNS/IPS/TD/FN/95)

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