ROME – International news agencies were poised to record the possible resignation of embattled World Food Programme Number 2 honcho Amir Mahmoud Abdulla Wednesday as donors to the UN agency quizzed its top investigator over rampant sexual harassment and abuse in the huge poverty-busting outfit's Rome headquarters disclosed by an outside review of culture and ethics.

 Executive Director David Beasley pointedly told staff Tuesday that no investigation of Sudanese Abdulla had been started and claimed that he was not mentioned in the external review which prompted the normally sleepy Executive Board of WFP to grill the agency’s Inspector General, head of the notorious investigation department that insiders say in the recent past was used to cover up for sex harassment by executives rather than expose them.  The IG was quizzed as Reuter news agency’s New York office asked the news agency’s Rome bureau to be alert for Abdulla possibly falling on his sword if his position becomes untenable.

 “Amir is hanging on for dear life,” one insider said, “if donors want his head he will have no choice.”

“it is not often that the IG is grilled by the meek EB unless their capitals have asked them to do so.”

 Abdulla, considered the pasha in charge of the tough old guard at the agency, was not mentioned by name in the review. But a respondent was quoted in the review as referring to an email in which Abdulla’s wife blew the whistle to UN book club members on her husband’s alleged philandering.

 While it is not a crime in the United Nations to have an affair some donors are concerned that the burly Abdulla, aged 62 but believed still not to need viagra, could be perceived as inhabiting a grey area between adventure and possible harassment that could be perceived as lowering the tone of the largest humanitarian agency in the world.

 jp