ROME – FAO Director General José Graziano da Silva insisted the UN agency buy him a brand new Mercedes despite at least seven other limousines being in the car pool for him to use, FAO sources said.

 There was no immediate confirmation or denial from the tight-lipped Food and Agriculture Organisation press office. However critics at the agency said the insistence on a new ‘Merc’ by the Brazilian  agronomist seems to reflect a new level of grandiosity following his request earlier this year that FAO foot the bill for a personal driveway he is having built at his apartment block in the Avventino so that jostling with other tenants in a communal entrance does not upset Graziano’s bad back.

“There were at least seven or eight cars in the FAO car pool Graziano could have chosen but of course none of them was a Mercedes,” said a well-informed FAO source.

 The Mercedes order recalled the case of Kanayo Nwanze, the president of the FAO’s sister agency IFAD, who was offered a free Alfa Romeo limousine by the Italian government when he was elected to the UN development bank but insisted IFAD buy him the latest model of BMW.