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| UN accepted Mugabe's exchange rate in Zimbabwe, refuses to disclose losses as in Myanmar |
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| author/source:Inner City Press (US) |
| published:Fri 28-Nov-2008 |
| posted on this site:Fri 28-Nov-2008 |
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| Article Type : News |
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| Until two weeks ago, the UN converted at a government-imposed rate at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe |
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Comment
Matthew Russell Lee
United Nations - The UN let the Zimbabwe regime of Robert Mugabe take a cut of all aid money it raised and, until two weeks ago, converted at a government-imposed rate at the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, two UN officials admitted to Inner City Press on November 26. Catherine Bragg, Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator in the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, refused to compare the exchange rate the UN accepted from the government to other available rates. "The UN does use the black market," she said. "Whatever exchange rate the government allows us to have, the UN has to use." Ms. Bragg and OCHA were appealing for $550 million for Zimbabwe in 2009. In 2008, using but not disclosing Mugabe regime dictated exchange rates, the UN appealed for $400 million, and raised and spent $300 million.
Earlier this year, Inner City Press exposed the UN's loss of 20 to 25% of money raised by the UN and spent in Myanmar after Cyclone Nargis as the UN allowed the Than Shwe military government to require conversion of dollars into government Foreign Exchange Certificates. At that time, Inner City Press asked OCHA chief John Holmes, as well as the spokespeople for Ban Ki-moon, UNICEF and the UN Development Program to disclose any other countries in which the UN system was losing 5% or more to government require currency exchange. The responses ranges from "there are no such countries" - which is now shown to be untrue - to "we don't need to tell you." This latter approach was continued four months later, by Ms. Bragg and Ban's spokesperson Michele Montas. Ms. Bragg refused to compare the Zimbabwe rate up until two weeks ago to the exchange rates others were able to obtain.
Ms. Montas. after a back and forth with Inner City Press, said that even the UN's unofficial information on exchange rate losses "will not be available to you." In the UN's transcript, her quote is inaccurately transcripted as "will not be valuable to you." The UN's summary of Ms. Bragg's OCHA press conference does not use the word black market, which she used two times, and does not include the unanswered questions in this regard. How could the UN appeal for hundreds of millions of dollars while it knew that of this aid money it was losing high percentages - 25% in Myanmar, an unknown percentage in Zimbabwe and other undisclosed countries?
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