UNICEF Says Kenya Staff Stole, Wasted Millions in Aid Funds

At the worst of possible times, the U.N. Children’s Fund has conceded the most troubling of possible news: Its staff in Nairobi stole $1 million in relief funds for suffering Africans and wasted $8 million to $9 million more.

In a statement from New York, UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy said: “This is a serious blow to UNICEF.”

In the last couple of years, the agency has received highly positive notices for its work with children victimized by the bloody crises in Rwanda and Somalia. Now, as the result of an internal audit, the agency admits that during this same period its Kenyan headquarters staff was living it up and enriching itself.

Eight UNICEF staff members already have been dismissed, and 15 others are accused of “serious misconduct, including fraud.”

The agency said $1 million was stolen in “personal fraud” and the remainder lost through “gross mismanagement.”

UNICEF said the accused staffers will be given time to respond to the charges before evidence is turned over to Kenyan authorities for possible prosecution.

In its statement, UNICEF was vague about the nature of the fraud. But a source said that staffers, among other things, billed the agency for parties and excessive entertainment--a particularly galling affront to the private donors and governments who contributed to UNICEF with the trust that they were helping some of the most needy children in the world.

The source said Kenya staffers also are believed to have engaged in massive expense account fraud, including phony purchases of equipment and services. The audit was triggered in January when a visiting UNICEF executive stumbled onto a contract for services never undertaken, the source said.

UNICEF said the figure of $9 million to $10 million stolen and wasted is only an estimate, in part because the investigation is continuing “and also because the audit was designed to investigate the nature of the problem and identify those responsible and not do a comprehensive accounting of funds.”

The scandal occurs as funding for U.N. programs and for African relief projects in general is under increasing pressure from critics, including some in the new Republican-controlled U.S. Congress.

Ironically, UNICEF is one of the few U.N. programs that Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says he does not want to cut.