On March 11,2008, chief UN investigator Inga-Britt Alenius, was pressed by reporters, for answers over copies of a report on her agency, the Office of Internal Oversight Services, and its embattled Investigative Division.

In a statement Alenius replied “It’s my document, for my perusal,”.

The UN’s Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions noted that “the Committee did not have the benefit of access to the review itself, as OIOS declined to provide it.”

These reports were at the center of a BBC report which claimed that the UN covered up that its troops in DR of Congo gave arms to militias and smuggled gold and ivory. The allegations were based on confidential UN sources, involve Pakistani and Indian troops working as peace keepers. It further stated that the UN investigated some of the claims in 2007, but said it could not substantiate claims of arms dealing, but UN insiders told the BBC, they had been prevented from pursuing their inquiries for political reasons. Story reported here

Earlier this week, in a press briefing, the question was asked,”who had paid for the report.”
“The UN budget,” the senior UN official replied. So how is it Ms. Ahlenius’ report?

The reports are damning. The first, by Erling Grimstad, states among other thing that

“OIOS suffers from an ineffective and unclear structure, lack of independent budget and limited to no administrative support (check in and separating procedures, travel arrangements, etc.), poor management, conflicts at the senior management level, lack of communication inside ID/OIOS as well as with stakeholders and clients of ID/OIOS, lack of standard operating procedures and constant disagreements with regard to the scope of some of the investigative procedures of the division. This has obviously resulted in instability, high turnover rates and non-optimal working conditions for investigators.”

Well the report “owned” by Ms Inga-Britt Alenius, paid for from the UN’s donor countries, withheld from UN’s Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions, and leaked to the BBC, is now available for the world to see in PDF :

Review of the OIOS Investigations Division, United Nations
Submitted to the Under-Secretary-General of Office of Internal Oversight Services
June 26, 2007 Erling Grimstad

Also See:

A Culture Review of the Investigations Division of OIOS
Consultant’s Report Submitted to: Inga-Britt Ahlenius
Under-Secretary General Office of Internal Oversight Services
by Michel Girodo, Ph.D July 13th, 2007