Outgoing UN official slams UN Chief on accountability

The outgoing Undersecretary-General and Comptroller of the United Nations has blasted her boss UN Chief Ban Ki-moon's record on accountability within the world body.


In a 50-page confidential memo to Ban, which was obtained by Associated Press amd leaked to Washington Post Tuesday, Undersecretary-General Inga-Britt Ahlenius has accused Ban of systematically undermining her authority and weakening the U.N.'s oversight functions so much that it is becoming irrelevant.

Ahlenius, a Swede, who has completed her five-year term at the UN said in her memo that the UN Chief "undermined and sabotaged the responsibilities and independence that were granted to her office" as the senior official responsible for the war on corruption in the organization.

Attacking severely, Ahlenius wrote in her memo "There is no transparency; there is lack of accountability."

"Rather than supporting the internal oversight which is the sign of strong leadership and good governance, you have strived to control it which is to undermine its position," Washington Post quoted the memo.

"I regret to say that the Secretariat is now in a process of decay. It is not only falling apart ... it is drifting into irrelevance," the Swedish diplomat has written.

Read the Washington Post report.