UN staff on £1.5bn Iraq aid project ‘demanding bribes’: The Guardian

Three UNICEF colleagues sent me this article by the Guardian, which can be read in full length by clicking here. 

One UNICEF colleague said: Hopefully UNICEF avoids these kinds of issues. Hopefully.

Another colleague said: the issues emerging about inefficiency and corruption in the aid from the UN system as a whole - whether or not one compares with bilaterals - are plainly profound.

Here some excerpts:

....interviews ....suggest the UN is fueling the culture of bribery that has permeated Iraqi society since Saddam Hussein’s overthrow in 2003.

....bribes of up to 15% of the contract value have been demanded by UNDP staff, according to three employees and four contractors.

...As well as corruption, funds have been spent on redundancies and the UN’s large overheads, raising further questions about what share of the mammoth budget actually reached war-torn communities.

...Interviewees ... said the programme had undergone an unwarranted expansion and extension that had mostly served to sustain the UNDP’s footprint while absolving the Iraqi government of its own obligations to rebuild the country.

... [Interviewees] described a perverse incentive structure in which UN employees who wanted to “keep their cushy salaries” colluded with government officials who benefit financially to identify new projects, with progress reports embellishing results to justify more funding.

...[Training sessions and workshops] were attended by government officials and community members mostly for the sake of enjoying a free trip and cashing in allowances.... “UNDP just wants to burn the money and show the donor that they are doing the workshops,” said one former employee.

Detlef Palm

By Simona Foltyn/The Guardian

January 21, 2024

Staff working for the UN in Iraq are allegedly demanding bribes in return for helping businessmen win contracts on postwar reconstruction projects in the country, a Guardian investigation has found.

The alleged kickbacks are one of a number of claims of corruption and mismanagement the Guardian has uncovered in the Funding Facility for Stabilization, a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) scheme launched in 2015 and backed by $1.5bn (£1.2bn) in support so far from 30 donors, including the UK.

Since the 2003 US-led invasion, the international community has pumped billions of aid dollars into Iraq. Twenty years on, the country still suffers from poor services and infrastructure, despite being the world’s fourth-largest oil producer and generating a record-breaking $115bn in oil revenues last year.

Corruption and kickbacks have been described as “the lifeblood of politics in Iraq”, which is why the UN carries out projects directly, promising more transparency than local institutions. In a statement to the Guardian, the UNDP said it had “internal mechanisms that prevent and detect corruption and mismanagement, supported by robust compliance procedures and internal controls”.

But interviews with more than two dozen current and former UN employees, contractors, Iraqi and western officials suggest the UN is fuelling the culture of bribery that has permeated Iraqi society since Saddam Hussein’s overthrow in 2003.

The Guardian has found that bribes of up to 15% of the contract value have been demanded by UNDP staff, according to three employees and four contractors. In return, the employee helps the contractor navigate the UNDP’s complex bidding system to ensure they pass the vetting process.

“Nobody can get a contract without paying. There’s nothing in this country you can get without paying, not from the government, not from UNDP,” according to one contractor, who told the Guardian they had been approached by UNDP staff demanding bribes.

Continue reading by clicking here.