ROME – The FAO is cutting 50 more project or short term posts from its Global Resource Management system as Florentin Albu and rogue directors defy orders to redeploy axed staff, UN sources say.

 “GRMS was developed and deployed around the world at a cost of over dlrs 30 million,” a senior staffer at the Rome-based hunger-fighting UN agency commented. “Some of these people may be asked to return as consultants in the next year but without benefits such as pension contributions or health insurance.”

  The latest cuts come amid growing staff disgruntlement over the failure of Mr Albu, the controversial Roumanian director of FAO’s CIO or IT division, to comply with a directive by Director General Jose Graziano da Silva requiring directors to give new posts to staff whose jobs have been abolished.

 “The ‘whiz kid’ from the Carpathians and a couple of other directors continue to openly defy the DG's directives to take in the ‘refugees,’ mostly from the decimated CIO division,” a senior source said.

 “The CIO Director who has contributed next to nothing in the two years that he has been in the helm of the division, is more concerned about the new Apple iPADS that his P4 and above managers should have rather than recovering and planning for the aftermath of the ‘CIO massacre’ of hundreds of posts,” the source added.

  “Services will be cut as the outsourcing of those services was found to be very costly. Vague ideas are floating around the corridors along with a multitude of rumors that create instability, uncertainty, negativity and unwillingness to support any new initiatives.” “An additional 50 or more project and short term posts have been cut this past week from the much tooted GR MS system support team.”

  “While the whiz kid toots his augmented reality project as if it were the panacea to the world's evils. All that is missing from his office is the X-box to complete his geek status.” Meanwhile in a rare example of UN comradeship, the AP in FAO staff association, the Redeployment Task Force and the Human Resources director have been working in harmony to overcome rogue directors’ resistance to re-deploying axed staff members.

  In a statement Tuesday the AP-in-FAO said it “is very much concerned over what we perceive to be Management push-back regarding the 14 professional staff, who still need to be redeployed, even for a number of cases where recommended placements are obvious.” “After a very promising start, in which the Redeployment Task Force was able to identify posts for a cumulative total of 23 resolved cases, the Task Force has now reached an impasse.

  Directors seem to be reneging on their commitment, despite the Director-General’s directions to the contrary, to fully support the redeployment of professional staff within their respective Divisions.”

 “The AP-in-FAO is appalled by this turn-of-events, especially when the Director-General has strongly encouraged Division Directors and Senior Managers throughout FAO to support the redeployment of professional colleagues who have lost their jobs, and to exercise as much flexibility as possible in so doing.”

  “We take this opportunity to impress upon all colleagues that the Redeployment Task Force has received a great deal of cooperation from Management, specifically from Human Resources, regarding this entire process. The AP-in-FAO firmly believes, however, that we need one more nudge to place the 14 remaining staff.”

  “We trust that Management will once again assist us by acting upon the recommendations of the Redeployment Task Force for the cases in question. It has often been said that in FAO “where there is a will, there is a way.”

 "Management has demonstrated to us that there is a will, and now we rely on their good offices to find the way to bring this redeployment exercise to a successful conclusion,” the staff association statement said.