More UN Disappointments

It's not too difficult to be disgusted with the current state of the UN, but even the NY Times couldn't ignore this bit of corruption:

An accountant working late one night in July 2003 at the United Nations-affiliated weather agency in Geneva spotted a check that he had signed, but noticed that someone had endorsed it to an unknown third party, one L. Khalil. The accountant's curiosity was piqued, and he began nosing around.

"Within half an hour I had found about 25 checks worth about $400,000 that had not gone to where they were supposed to go," said the accountant, Luckson Ngwira.

That led to a formal audit and a continuing criminal investigation by Swiss authorities at the sleepy agency, focusing on allegations of embezzlement of training funds by Muhammad Hassan, a Sudanese employee who controlled that money. Investigators allege in documents and interviews that Mr. Hassan stole as much as $3 million over three or four years.

But let's not forget:

The agency, which aims to coordinate and improve weather reporting around the globe, is small by United Nations standards, with just 350 employees and an annual budget of roughly $75 million. But critics of the United Nations said the weather agency's woes, coming after disclosures of widespread abuse in the oil for-food program in Iraq, reflect broader mismanagement at the organization.

No, really? And finally, the most disturbing part of the article:

Soon after his arrival at the agency, Mr. Ngwira said, Mr. Hassan asked him to be host to "one of our brothers from Africa" who had arrived in Geneva. When Mr. Ngwira declined, saying he and his family were still unpacking, Mr. Hassan said he was making a mistake.

"He said, 'Look, if you do something like this for the secretary general, he will never forget you,' " Mr. Ngwira said Mr. Hassan had told him. " 'People here get promoted not because of their work, but because they're nice to the powerful people here. This is an opportunity for you. If you don't take it, don't be surprised if you don't get promoted.' "

Beautiful. I'm sure that this kind of policy is exactly what a corrupt organization like the UN needs to straighten up its act. Now I'm not so naive to believe that "it's not what you know, it's who you know" isn't a policy practiced by companies and institutions of all kinds, but shouldn't we hold the UN to a higher standard? Or any standard whatsoever?