FAO Chilean connection to partnerships rising star

Well connected: Castenada (left) at a recent FAO Caribbean jamboree

 ROME – While shameless croneyism is endemic in the FAO’s bloated, Spanish-run communications division, the Partnerships Division at the troubled UN agency is just as bad with Chilean Rodrigo Castenada poised for a dlrs 200,000 tax-free D-1 job in an evident reward for his father having employed DG Jose Graziano da Silva’s third wife Paola Ligasacchi, FAO sources say.

 Senor Castaneda barely speaks English, a serious handicap given the diplomatic role of the division in seeking synergies with other organisations, yet he was recently given a senior P-5 position and is now studying for a Ph. D at an educational institution partnering with the FAO so that he can be promoted to D-1, the sources add.

 In addition to his father having headed an NGO that employed Dr Graziano’s Argentinan journalist bride no. 3, Ms Ligasacchi, the youthful Chilean wizard also paved his way for a plum position by studying under the director general when Graziano was a university professor, the sources told Italian Insider.

 FAO observers note that it is not the first time Dr Graziano has favoured well-connected underlings from Chile, where he headed the FAO’s Latin American division as assistant director general.

 Italian Insider revealed recently how Dr Graziano's office ordered the media department to rig the appointment to be press officer for FAO in Latin America of Juan Toha, nephew of the head of the Chilean Socialist party and mayor of Santiago Caroline Toha, discarding two strong women candidates.

   Toha left the plum job in Santiago mysteriously after Insider disclosed the skullduggery employed to ensure his scandalous appointment. One of the women made a formal complaint to the FAO which naturally ended in a whitewash.

 Meanwhile Dr Graziano has cracked the whip on the thorny subject of summer vacations, ordering that no assistant director general can leave for holidays this month until overdue work projects are got moving.

 To underline his opposition to such foot dragging, Dr. Graziano himself took off on vacation after issuing his draconian edict to his sidekicks.

 

Fervent couple: FAO DG Graziano da Silva and his wife Paolo Ligasacchi have an audience with Pope Francis at the Vatican in 2013. Photo credit: Osservatore Romano