YouSaid · the spoken record

Volcker

lines on the record
8
first
2005-09-07
most recent
2005-09-07
sittings or episodes
1
sources
un-security-council

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  1. “To some degree, the Organization has been weakened. That is why reform is so urgent. We commend our particular recommendations to the Council. And we urge the Council and the General Assembly to set firm benchmarks for progress. Quite specifically, action should be taken by the time the General Assembly completes its meetings in 2006. The opportunity for reform should not - in my view, must not - be lost.”

    2005-09-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5256 (2005) · source

  2. “I believe I speak for my colleagues as well as myself in the conviction that in an unsettled world the United Nations will again be called upon - it is being called upon today - to deal with complex operational problems crossing national and disciplinary boundaries. The administrative ability and the technical capacity of the Secretariat and the agencies will be tested again and again. A United Nations programme carries with it - and should carry with it - a strong sense of international legitimacy. No single nation or group of nations can match that potential quality. But we believe that more than legitimacy is essential to success. Support is, in the end, dependent upon credibility and confidence. And it is that credibility and confidence that have been challenged by the travails of the oil-for- food programme.”

    2005-09-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5256 (2005) · source

  3. “These and other recommendations are common to most recent commentary and reports. What our work does is bring new dimensions to the discussion. I believe our investigation is unprecedented in both scale and detail. It covers both the Security Council itself and the Secretariat in New York. It has touched directly on nine other members of the United Nations family. Consequently, we do not believe our conclusions can be dismissed as simply reporting aberrations in one programme or something that can be smoothed over with patchwork changes. Instead, the problems are symptomatic of deep-seated systemic issues. Those issues arise in an Organization designed 60 years ago for a simpler time, an Organization then without large and complex operational challenges alongside its political and diplomatic responsibilities.”

    2005-09-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5256 (2005) · source

  4. “An expert study commissioned by the Committee confirms that the programme averted the clear and present danger of malnutrition and a further collapse of medical services in Iraq. That is no small achievement, especially when combined with the support that the programme provided for maintaining the basic sanctions against Iraq and its inability to obtain weapons of mass destruction. The conclusions we draw will not surprise the Council. They emphasize the need for stronger operational capacity and authority. Specifically, we suggest or recommend that a new chief operating officer be appointed with a clear mandate and authority for administration. Our conclusions underscore the need for strong and independent auditing control and investigatory functions. And again, we recommend a strong independent oversight board.”

    2005-09-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5256 (2005) · source

  5. “Weak planning, sorely inadequate funding, and too few professional staff were all characteristic of the process. The absence of truly independent status for the auditing and control functions was a critical deficiency. Close cooperation among various United Nations organs apparently goes against the grain for agencies with their own funding, management and oversight. It is true that autonomy can bring benefits, but in a complex programme requiring a range of competencies, while at the same time invoking common funding and a common purpose, absence of full cooperation should not be tolerated. That is a litany of problems. Clearly, there is another side to the story - one of positive success.”

    2005-09-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5256 (2005) · source

  6. “That basic difficulty was compounded by a failure to clearly define the complex administrative responsibilities shared between the Security Council Committee established by resolution 661 (1990) and the Secretariat, and by continuing political differences. The result was that no one seemed clearly in command. Delays in or evasion of decision-making were chronic. The administrative structure and practices of the Secretariat and some agencies clearly were not up to the truly extraordinary challenge presented by the programme. Sadly, those weaknesses were aggravated by unethical and corrupt behaviour at key points at the top of the Office of the Iraq Programme and in the purchasing department. There was a pervasive absence of effective auditing and administrative controls.”

    2005-09-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5256 (2005) · source

  7. “What I want to emphasize this morning are not the details, but the broad conclusions and recommendations the Committee has reached. They are summarized in the preface to our report, released yesterday, which I believe is in members' hands. In essence, the responsibility for the failures must be broadly shared, starting, we believe, with member States and the Security Council itself. In the first place, the programme left too much initiative with Iraq. It was, as one past member of this Council has put it, a compact with the devil, and the devil had means for manipulating the programme to his ends.”

    2005-09-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5256 (2005) · source

  8. “Mr. Volcker: I and my colleagues with me today greatly appreciate this opportunity to address the Security Council directly on the results of our inquiry. Eighteen months have now passed since the inquiry was launched, with the full support of a resolution of the Security Council. That resolution was critically important in signalling Council members' interest in the investigation and in eliciting cooperation by Member States, their agencies and, importantly, the countries represented around this table. Our assignment has been to look for misadministration or maladministration in the oil-for- food programme and for evidence of corruption within the United Nations and by contractors. Unhappily, we found both. The investigation and the findings are documented in great detail in the very large report before the Council.”

    2005-09-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.5256 (2005) · source