UN staff vote no confidence in Annan
(Reuters)
Updated: 2006-03-10 06:44

The U.N. Staff Union voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to express no confidence in U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his top managers after Annan announced plans to overhaul the U.N. bureaucracy.

U.N Secretary-General Kofi Annan arrives for a news conference in central London January 30, 2006. [Reuters]

A motion "to express a statement of no confidence in the secretary-general and his senior management team" was opposed by just two of the more than 500 U.N. employees attending a closed-door emergency meeting of the staff group, said Staff Union official Guy Candusso.

Annan two days earlier had introduced a 33-page report on U.N. management reform that proposed outsourcing some U.N. work or moving staff out of the United States for some translation services, document production, printing and publishing and information technology.

He also recommended more financial oversight, simplified hiring and firing procedures, staff buyouts, more training and a modern information system.

The costs of the plan could run to US$500 million. Approval rests in the hands of the 191 U.N. member-nations.

Annan argued existing rules and regulations "make it very hard for the organization to conduct its work efficiently or effectively" and said a "radical overhaul" was needed.

But staff members said they feared he would slash payrolls and programs in order to cut down on costs.

U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, whose government has pushed hard for extensive reforms at the United Nations, declined comment on the staff vote but said all organizations needed to regularly review their activities to see which were better performed internally and which could be outsourced.