U.N. STAFF OUTRAGE

From New York Post

June 15, 2004 -- WASHINGTON — Many U.N. employees fear reprisals from their bosses if they step forward with information on the Iraq oil-for-food scandal or report other allegations of corruption, according to a shocking internal survey released yesterday.
A recent poll of 6,086 employees and managers released on the U.N. Web site revealed that the staff has little faith in the world body leadership's commitment to ethics and integrity and that most believe that when allegations of wrongdoing surface, they are not properly handled.

The survey, conducted by an outside consulting firm for the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight, also revealed that a large plurality of the staffers feel unprotected from reprisals for reporting violations because the United Nations does not have strong enough whistleblower protection and is run by an "old-boys network."

The report said 45.2 percent of the staff gave "unfavorable" responses to questions about whether they are protected from reprisals if they report wrongdoing while only 7.4 percent gave "favorable" responses.
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