UNESCO - a scandal comes from America

By Charles Perera

The corridors of the UNESCO are bristling in muted chatter with a scandal about men, money and mistresses that is new to its nearly sixty year history. In an atmosphere charged with angry emotion an anonymous note prepared by more radical of senior staff members goes its round within the precincts of this Noble Institution. It denounces the proposed reforms which put the principles themselves of the United Nations seriously into question. The 58 member Executive Board elected last October itself taken by surprise, called for an immediate investigation on the strange consultation contracts entered into by Peter Smith, the Deputy Director General of UNESCO in-charge of the Education Sector.

Mr. Peter Smith recruited at the beginning of 2005, was a former Republican Congressman, from Vermont before he became the founding President of a small University in the State of Monterey Bay in California. His appointment marked the return of United State of America to the UNESCO decided by George Bush in 2002, who was seeking support of the United Nations before his army adventured into Iraq. No sooner than he came he was able to create displeasure among the specialist in Education who came under his management.

Peter Smith was charged with a mission to find ways and means to improve the Education Sector. He began by hiring a Washington based American consultant agency Navigant Consulting. It was a surprise choice as the company is specialised in reorganising of Industries, Banks and Insurances, without even a Paris based Office. It was his personal contact Letitia Chambers who was put in charge of the project at that end, and her commuting expenses itself have enhanced the cost of the contracts. Peter Smith apparently wanted only her and nobody else to handle the project.

The seven consulting contracts with the Navigant Consulting between June, 2005 and August 2006 for a handsome sum of 2,14 million Dollars entered into without calling for tenders was in breach of the financial regulations of the UNESCO. Peter Smith had insisted to go ahead with the seventh contract with the same team, despite the UNESCO Committee of Contracts, evaluated the proposals for the seventh contract as vague, and in no way different from the mediocrity of the previous stage of the project.

The Navigant Consulting had the exclusive right of use of the enormous budget at their disposal without challenge or control. It was this procedural drift that caused the Executive Board in October, 2006 to request Mr. Philippe Séguin of the External Audits of UNESCO since 2006, to investigate the procedures that had been followed to select the Navigant Consulting Company. The investigation is also to determine why Koichiro Matsura , the Director General of UNESCO had all along supported the decision of his Deputy Director without putting the project before the Executive Board , as it should have normally been done.

Some of the Member States consider the reforms proposed by the Navigant Consulting are inconsistent and detrimental to the cause of UNESCO, in that a number of operational sections is to be reduced in favour of administrative services.

Another allegation brought against Peter Smith is that he has sidelined the UNESCO Literacy Programme, the priority project of UNESCO since 1945. Not favourable to suggestions or criticism of his single minded plans and projects, he retaliated against the critics by having them transferred out
from the UNESCO Head Quarters to Beirut, Lagos, Dakar and Bangkok, without finding it necessary to give them any explanation..

Another initiative of Peter Smith that made an outcry at the time was transferring 200,000 dollars from the UNESCO budget reserved for the literacy projects in Mauritania, Iraq and Palestine to finance a conference hosted by Laura Bush and the White-House for half a day in New York, on the
18 of last September. The First Lady participated as the Honorary Ambassador of the United Nations Literacy Decade.

Several Diplomats were also shocked to learn that between July,2005 and2006 the University of Monterey Bay had paid to Peter Smith 157,932 Dollars while he was already employed in the UNESCO. The rules of ethic bars an International Civil Servant from receiving a salary for any other employment. However, on the 15 November, 2006 the California Faculty Association a University Trade Union has filed legal action , claiming that the payment was illegal.

Searching his past some have found that the University of Peter Smith had been dragged in to justice by three of its Staff Members for discriminatory action against them for reason of their racial origin. An arrangement had been made to pay them 2.5 million Dollars to stop legal proceedings. The scandal does not help to enhance the already low prestige of America.

(References: Protégé de Bush fait scandale à Paris by Patrice Piquard in Capital January,2007 and California Faculty Winter 2007)