The Firehose Continues
The WSJ has an interview with the whistleblower accountant who brought the mismanagement of the United Nations Development Program in North Korea to light. He's the whistleblower the UN fired after warning him not to rock the boat.
Mr. Shkurtaj arrived in North Korea on Nov. 4, 2004. He says one of his first indications that something was amiss was when checks denominated in euros and made out to "cash" arrived on his desk for signature. "Rule No. 1 in every UNDP country in the world is that you have to operate in local currency," he says, "not in hard currency. It's the rule number one of development. . . in order to support the local economy and not devalue or destroy the local currency."A few Congressmen are trying to get Mr. Shkurtaj his job back, since the UN claims to protect whistleblowers like him....
A North Korean -- Li Kum Sun -- controlled the office safe in her job as "finance officer." "Damn it," says Mr. Shkurtaj, "you had security-evacuation plans in the hands of a North Korean. It's unbelievable." One of his few on-the-job successes was to get control of the safe and petty cash taken away from Ms. Li and handed over to him in March 2006.
If you didn't understand the reference to the firehose in the title, all is explained here. One of Wolfowitz's chief accusers, Ad Melkert, was in charge of the UNDP while it was throwing money around willy-nilly in North Korea.