london

The United Nations climate convention secretariat in Bonn has been heavily criticized for failing to follow standard UN procedures for managing its financial and administrative affairs.

In a report presented to the conference of the parties to the convention, which is being held this week in Buenos Aires, auditors from the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services found that staff were often untrained, and were overworked, particularly during the secretariat's move from Geneva to Bonn in August 1996.

In its reply, the secretariat says that most of the report's recommendations for addressing such problems have been implemented. But it notes that many recommendations cannot be fully implemented without extra administrative staff, for which there is no provision in its budget.

Among the problems found by the auditors was the fact that the chief of administration during 1996 and 1997 had no experience in finance or accounting, and was not provided with a finance officer. They also found that proper selection procedures were not followed in recruiting consultants, and that their terms of reference were “sometimes very brief”.

UN procedures state that the names of three candidates must be put forward for a consultant's post, with specific reasons for all recommendations. “In each of the cases we reviewed, only one candidate had been proposed for the contract, and no justification was provided for selection of the candidate,” the report says.