More Bad News for Ban Ki-moon

By Seana Cranston J.D. | August 6, 2010

In a previous post, Terry McKeegan discussed an insider memo from Inga-Britt Ahlenius, the outgoing chief of the U.N.’s anti-corruption investigations division.  This memo was described as a “stinging rebuke” of U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s leadership, as Ahlenius expressed her belief that “the [U.N.] secretariat now is in a process of decay . . . The secretariat is drifting . . . into irrelevance.”

One of Ahlenius’s accusations against Ban was that his Senior Review Group blocked her attempt to hire Robert Appleton, a former federal prosecutor and former head of the U.N. Procurement Task Force, for the post of permanent head of the investigation division within the UN’s Office of Internal Services (“OIOS”).  The U.N. Procurement Task Force was a white-collar fraud unit that investigated corruption in U.N. peacekeeping missions from 2006 until 2008.  These investigations uncovered “20 significant corruption schemes,” which resulted in felony convictions and sanctions against numerous U.N. vendors.

In an interesting development, Mr. Appleton has decided to sue the UN Secretary-General for gender and racial discrimination.  Appleton seeks $1 million in damages and up to $500,000 in lost wages and benefits.  Specifically, Appleton claims that Ban’s rejection of his candidacy is a breach of the UN Charter and General Assembly resolutions.

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