Evaluation director's global 'junket' raises FAO eyebrows

 ROME --  Fun-loving FAO Evaluation Division Director Clemencia Cosentino enjoyed four separate trips to regional offices of the UN agency around the world recently but “rarely showed her face” to senior managers who invited her to discuss their poverty-busting work, spending her time as a tourist funded by donations for the hungry to visit historical sites and museums in Asia, Africa and Latin America, FAO sources say.

 “The abuse of authority by the OED director is taking a more sophisticated manner, exploiting the weak regulations of the organization,”  well-placed sources told the Italian Insider. “The director was invited to join senior managers in the five different regional offices starting with Accra, followed by Bangkok, Cairo, Chile, and Budapest.”

 “However according to credible reports from local staff, the director rarely showed her face for more than 30 minutes in any of these regional meetings but remained in her hotel, taking advantage of free travel benefits.”

 “Instead offocussing on official duties,she went and visitedhistorical sites, museums and cultural places, allof this under the guise of official travel.”

 After the excursions made between November last year and March, together costing FAO an estimated dlrs 50,000 in donor funds, Ms Cosentino  “even didn't write back to office reports, which are a requirement for all staff after each trip … of course as there was no information she could write about.”

 During her sojourns, the director stayed in five star hotels such as the El Gezira Sheraton In Cairo. However when her staff are travelling for FAO, Ms Cosentino, an Argentinian American, strictly monitors their movements, the sources added.

 Meanwhile promotion within the critical evaluation division continues to be decided on the basis of croneyism, the sources said.

 Two P4 favourites of the director, a Palestinian American and an Italian dealing with GCF work, moved into bigger offices at the Rome headquarters in anticipation of becoming P5s before the promotion was official. In another rule violation the Italian, a Sicilian American, is the wife of a senior officer at FAO.

 In both cases no vacancy announcement was made so as to avoid the need of mounting a charade to exclude other potential candidates for the lucrative positions, the sources added.