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· Payroll procedures were so erratic that, while some

staff went months without receiving their wages, others

were paid twice for the same work.  One staffer had his

contract extended while he owed the UN $34,000 for

improper pay.

· Administrators routinely hired employees who failed

to meet UN requirements, including a finance director

who had no degree in finance, accounting, or adminis-

tration and a procurement chief who had no experience

in UN procurement procedures.

· Andronico Adede of Kenya, the tribunal's chief admin-

istrator, spent half of his time on duty traveling in

the region on official business, which drew him away

from the woes at the tribunal.35

· A plane chartered at a cost of $27,000 went to pick

up suspects detained in a West African country but had

to return empty because no agreement had been reached

in advance for that country to turn over the prison-

ers.36

Unfortunately, such abuses and incompetence are consis-

tent with a long, dreary pattern of conduct at the United

Nations.  In May 1998 Paschke released a report describing

widespread corruption and cronyism among UN purchasing

officers in Angola that wasted millions of dollars.  "The

audits disclosed serious management deficiencies and appar-

ent breaches of financial regulations and rules as well as

improprieties and irregularities in the procurement proc-

ess," explained Paschke.37  Among his findings:

· UN officials tried to issue more than $15 million in

unnecessary purchase orders to middlemen who would have

reaped huge commissions.

· Several unnecessary "rush" buying trips to South

Africa cost more than $1 million each.

· UN buyers paid nearly $7 million for substandard

equipment and then had to pay an additional $1 million

to make it usable.38

Vast Potential Obligations