The United Nations with crushing judgment of Erik Solheim
In a critical report, the UN’s internal audit concludes with a crushing judgment on how UN’s resigned environmental director Erik Solheim circumvented the organization’s travel rules.
Aftenposten has been granted access to the report, which was sent to UN member states on Friday. Among other things, it is stated that Solheim regularly encouraged a breach of law and advised its employees that “it is better to ask forgiveness for making a mistake than to wait for approval of just about everything in a dysfunctional bureaucracy.”
Solheim had also dismissed questions from the UN travel Department in Nairobi as “idiotic”.
Solheim resigned on Tuesday as the head of the UN Environment Program (UNEP).
Circumvention of rules
The UN’s Internal Audit concludes that UNEP’s senior management encouraged a culture where rules could be circumvented without consequences and where the rules for the use of UNEPS funds were broken. The report also reveals new details about Solheim’s travel activities. Such as; he once travelled to Paris two days after he claimed to be joining a meeting for one day, but stayed for an entire month.
To Aftenposten, Solheim said on Friday that the report is full of errors.
In 2012, the UNEP boss decided that reports are to be written for all travel. However, the UN’s internal audit has revealed that of his 596 travel related expenses, only 186 travel reports were available when they started their investigations.
© NTB scanpix / #Norway Today