On December 13, 1996, Annan was selected by the UN Security Council to be Secretary-General and was confirmed four days later by the General Assembly. Annan took the oath of office without delay, starting his first term as Secretary-General on January 1, 1997. Annan replaced outgoing Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali of Egypt, becoming the first person from a black African nation to become Secretary-General.
In an unprecedented action, in the more than 50 year history of the United Nations, UN employees were readying on Friday to make a historic vote of no confidence in scandal-plagued Secretary General Kofi Annan.
Annan has been in the line of fire over a high-profile series of scandals including controversy about a UN aid programme that investigators say allowed deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to embezzle billions of dollars.
But staffers said the trigger for the no-confidence measure was an announcement this week that Annan had pardoned the UN’s top oversight official, who was facing allegations of favouritism and sexual harassment.
The union had requested a formal probe into the behaviour of the official, Dileep Nair, after employees accused him of harassing members of his staff and violating UN rules on the hiring and promotion of workers.
Top UN spokesman Fred Eckhard announced on Tuesday that Nair had been exonerated by Annan “after a thorough review” by the UN’s senior official in charge of management, Catherine Bertini.
Annan underlined that he “had every confidence” in Nair, Eckhard said, but UN employees ridiculed the decision and claimed that investigators had not questioned the staff union, which first raised the complaints in April.
“This was a whitewash, pure and simple,” Guy Candusso, a senior member of the staff union, told AFP.
Anyone following the ongoing Oil for Food palaces program understands what “after a thorough review” deciphers to in Kofi’s world. I find it very sad given the mounting evidence of UN corruption fostered by Kofi, his son, and confidant Benon Sevon, who oversaw the OFF program, that it takes a “union action” by UN employees to issue a vote of no confidence to the secretary general.
With the exception of the US and its investigation that is currently being held by the Senate, the other 190 member nations are silent on the matter. And while those 190 are still hooked to “life support” an employee union has awoken from a deep coma.
UPDATE: UNITED NATIONS — A union representing United Nations staff has voted “no confidence” in senior management but stopped short of singling out Secretary-General Kofi Annan.
“We not only have confidence in him, we support him fully,” said U.N. Staff Union President Rosemarie Waters on Friday after the no-confidence vote passed. “He is in a very difficult job under very difficult circumstances, but we continue to have hope that he is doing his best. We only want his senior managers to exhibit the transparency and accountability that he has prescribed for the organization.”
Fools, they blew a good chance to make a valuable statement. But I also understand as union president she must take this stand. After all, who signs her members paychecks? Kofi the crook, although he uses the worlds taxpayers to do so, along with thousands of dead Iraqi’s as a result of the worlds largest scandal in history.
UPDATE II Looks like U.N. Staff Union President Rosemarie Waters wasn’t exactly forthcoming with all the details of the resolution when she said, “We not only have confidence in him, we support him fully.” Foxnews has obtained a transcript of the resolution and it indicates something less than “full support,” it reads in part:
Recalls that the Secretary-General declined to accept the honourable action of the deputy Secretary-General who tendered her resignation as a result of the Baghdad bombing of a UN compound that resulted in 22 staff members perishing, to hold accountable the head of UNHCR for alleged sexual harassment and to hold accountable the chef de cabinet whose son was employed by the Secretariat in contravention of staff rules;
Decides that the senior management no longer displays the level of integrity expected of all employees of the organization;
Which raises the question, how do you express full support for someone that has failed in this way? As I said earlier, Kofi signs their paychecks.