Inner City Press: Watchdogging and Taking Action Since 1987

Objections and, in places, Corrections

Updated February 11, 2007

  Generally, it is Inner City Press' policy to make corrections where warranted on the web page on which the article to be corrected is and remains located, and to then note that the page has been edited. Recently the UN Office of Project Services has requested more than that -- hence this separate update:

February 11, 2006 -- From Copenhagen, to which the UN Office for Project Services relocated in a controversial process reported on by Inner City Press on January 23, 2007, a letter has arrived from UNOPS' General Counsel. In two single-spaced pages, UNOPS does not dispute any of the reporting on its move, complete with bidding irregularities and sham staff-input sessions. Rather, UNOPS has fastened on an inadvertent confusion of dollars and Danish kroner in a second story, an issue Inner City Press addressed within less than an hour of it being raised, by a telephone call from Copenhagen on Sunday, January 28. [That even accounting for the interspersing of kroner and dollars in UNOPS bookkeeping issues still exist, including as to others in UNOPS, is beyond the scope of this note.]

  Given that corrections were already made, it would be a bad precedent for press freedom to accede to UNOPS' belated and legalistic demands, which would involve changes to the Internet itself and would amount to turning over an independent media outlet to UNOPS, which has not filed certified financial statements for three years, more than one year overdue.

   However because it is nice to be nice, Inner City Press chooses to hereby apologize in writing to Mr. Vanshelboim. No ill will toward Mr. Vanshelboim underlay the coverage. It is worth noting that despite UNOPS' reported budget of approximately $1 billion a year -- given the disarray and the lack of an audit, only approximations are possible -- UNOPS' web site lists no press contact, no communications officer, nothing.  On January 25, before publishing the article at issue, Inner City Press' UN correspondent sought to get answers from UNOPS' executive director, who after declining to provide the name of the beneficiaries of a consultant contract he had alluded to in his presentation to the Executive board and then after hearing the first of the substantive questions, regarding the agency's relocation, stated that he had to leave immediately for Copenhagen. He has since been since in New York, as has Mr. Vanshelboim (whose travel budget and costs were among the issues reported on).  And so we also suggest that rather than an elusive director then blustering general counsel, UNOPS designate a person to answer press questions, and publish that information, and the reason for not having had one and for the relocation, as prominently as possible. The reporting will continue - and has, today, on UNOPS payments to Nay Htun, click here to view.