ROME – Three longstanding and respected members of the embattled FAO Evaluation Division have resigned from the UN agency in the past month as the abuse of employees by the divisional director and her two intimidating henchwomen continues to demoralise a crucial part of the beleaguered hunger-fighting organisation, FAO sources say.

 In the wake of protests earlier this month by FAO staff over the end of teleworking, meanwhile, observers noted that the OED head regularly takes Fridays off to work from home in blatant violation of the rules under which directors are not allowed to ‘telework,” the sources added.

 The three quit in disgust after having their performances called into question for minor misdemeanours that were reported by the Argentinian American cheftaine, Clemencia Cosentino to the increasingly dysfunctional FAO HR division run by its sleazy Lebanese interim pasha. One of the three was a P4 professional based in Latin America, described as an experienced evaluator, while the other two were highly experienced consultants from Lebanon and Brazil.

 Meanwhile another longstanding member of the division is again on medical leave after becoming stressed out by the culture of bullying and intimidation in the division typified by he most senior managers using mocking body language to denigrate colleagues in meetings, the sources added.

 The level of vicious abuse in the division, described by one survivor who transferred out as "hallucinating" has led to concern amongst observers that FAO could again have another tragedy such as the suicide of a young Japanese staffer who jumped to his death from the FAO Cairo office some 15 years ago after management ignored his cries for help.

 The FAO director general Qu Dongyu is aware of the toxic atmosphere and reign of fear in the evaluation division not just because his aides deliver him digests of the Italian Insider reports on the scandal but also because the Chinese communist party members in the FAO keep everyone under close surveillance and report back to him.

 “Qu doesn’t care a hoot,” commented one FAO insider, “all he is interested in at this stage is travelling so that he can supplement what he has said publicly is an inadequate six figure salary by adding lucrative travel allowances to his emoluments.”

 The main sin of the two consultants who resigned evidently was their failure unctuously to kowtow to the Argentinian regime in the division, which was for them the kiss of death meaning they had to be pushed out.

 The sad destruction of the once impressive evaluation division, that in the past served as a check on wild policies by inexperienced DGs, is indicative of the weakness of the current Human Resources appraisal system currently in force, FAO watchers say.

 Under the Bazouki regime assessment of individuals’ performance is carried out superficially at the request of a megalomaniac divisional director without the employees’ valuable achievements earlier in their FAO careers being taken into consideration, the sources added.

The OED director regularly works from 10 a.m. to 4 p,m, from Monday to Thursday but on many Fridays she “illegally” teleworks from home, naturally without having to go through the complex bureaucratic procedure that other division members have to negotiate in order to be allowed to telework.

 “Clemencia is allowing herself to disappear whenever she wants,” an informed source told the Italian Insider, “she should lead by example.”

 Against this background super ambitious FAO chief economist Max Torero has resumed the agency's efforts to silence the Italian Insider by denouncing its chief editor for purportedly threatening him in an article quoting diplomatic sources criticising the megalomaniac tendencies of the Peruvian 'bullfighter."

 Torero is unlikely to succeed by following the same kind of legal harassment of the Insider through the Italian courts that was initiated by José Graziano da Silva and Mario Lubetkin. The criminal libel cases failed to silence the Insider and had the main effect of wasting considerable sums of donor money earmarked for the poor on expensive lawyers attacking the Italian Insider, in vain. 

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