As part of its broader effort to boost transparency and accountability and guard against mismanagement and corruption, the UN Monday announced a pioneering agreement with the accounting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers for 8.000 hours of pro bono work to monitor disbursement of its nearly one billion US dollar tsunami relief fund.
– I have heard no such problem raised so far but I expect there to be,” UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland said in New York on the UNs 977 million US dollar flash appeal to address the December disaster which killed more than 300,000 people and devastated large stretches of coast in a dozen Indian Ocean countries.
– I am sure there will be cases of possible mismanagement, mishandling, but I am sure also there will be many allegations that may not be correct and that is why it is so good to have this kind of investigative tool, because we can quicker confirm whether there is something wrong or we can confirm that it is actually nothing wrong, he added.
He said this “very important agreement,” worth millions of dollars, “will mean unprecedented transparency and investigations capacity.”
Although the UN has other agreements with the private sector, this is the first agreement of its kind in the field of transparency and accountability and “we do not see it as the last. There may be many more to come. It helps us to take a new step in the direction that we really needed, Mr. Egeland noted.
Since allegations of misconduct and mismanagement arose in connection with the now-defunct UN-administered multi-billion-dollar Oil-for-Food programme for Iraq, under which Saddam Hussein was allowed to sell oil for humanitarian supplies, Secretary-General Kofi Annan has repeatedly pledged a policy of transparency.
PricewaterhouseCoopers global leader of advisory services, Frank Brown, said the firm would focus on two main areas: enhancing the financial tracking system and using forensic techniques to identify and probe potential instances of improper payments.
The company has asked other organizations, such as software firms, to consider donating professional services and several have expressed interest, he added.
Mr. Egeland said the flash appeal was now 90 per cent covered with more than 500 million dollar already paid up, and the rest firmly committed.
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