Audit finds “failures” in UN office

Although an audit report on the former UN human rights field office in Rwanda described extensive management failures, no one was being held accountable, delegates said on Tuesday at a meeting of the UN General Assembly’s fifth committee on administrative and budgetary matters. It was “very surprising” that the UN audit report did not “point the finger squarely on the party responsible” for the failures, a UN press release quoted the representative of Tanzania as saying. He said the persons responsible were “hiding” behind the fact that it was the first field operation established by the Office of the UN Human Rights Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR).

The UNHCHR representative told the committee that the High Commissioner had recognised that “many things had gone wrong” in the Rwanda operation, and measures had been taken to ensure such problems did not occur in the future, the press release stated. The audit report said that the Rwanda field office, which existed from 1994-98, had weak internal controls, a poorly functioning financial management system and inadequate headquarters oversight.