Corruption in RSS UN Delegation
By Thomas Ngundeng, Kenya
September 18, 2015 (SSB) — One of the ambassadors travelling to New York with the President (of Vice President) called me from Juba and we started conversing about the impact our delegation to the UN is going to have.
Considering the current situation into which our country is plunged, we hope that the meeting between GoSS and SPLM-IO delegations at that high level will help the cause of peace in our bleeding country.
After a lengthy discussion with my friend, he shifted angrily to a topic which he thought exposes the level of corruption our official have grown accustomed to across the board. He started attacking our protocol officers of our U.S. diplomatic mission for what he said were “corrupt deals” they may be playing.
His case in point is that the entire delegation of South Sudan, including non-ministers, was booked into one of the most expensive hotels in New York just for those protocol officers to get kickbacks.
He argued that, considering the low level of salaries in South Sudan and the fact that they have families (nuclear and extended) to take care of, such trips to the UN which come one every three or four years for them, are opportunities to pay back some debts and school fees.
That their being booked at that very expensive hotel where other African countries have always avoided, including their ministers, will expose the level of arrogance and impracticality we are showing to the world.
Considering that the delegates are doing the task required of them, my friend was bitter that the money paid to that expensive hotel is arbitrarily deducted from their DSA. The protocol officers in our U.S. mission decided that they “must” stay at that hotel to be close to the principal.
But my friend argued that it is even against protocol to put up with your president at the same hotel when they are good and safe hotels a block away where most South American, Asian and African ministers will put up.
I could help but to laugh at my friend’s angry tone when he said that the money paid for 10 days at that hotel on his behalf is more than his salary for one year. Yet, it is deducted from what should have been put in the delegates hands for them to decide as a group which relatively cheaper ones are around.
All in all, for everything involving finance, our protocol officers have seen opportunity to make money. But that does not stop at their level, it has become a culture all over the place. This particular issue, my friend insists, has destroyed the moral of the delegates.
The writer is a humanitarian worker based in Kenya. He can be reached at ngundent3@yahoo.com.
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