Sunday Times 2
Will UN chief and senior management volunteer pay cuts in crisis-stricken world body?
Antonio Guterres walking across the empty corridors in the locked-down UN Secretariat building, NY. (Credit: United Nations)
UNITED NATIONS, May 20 (IPS) – As a spiralling financial crisis threatens to undermine the UN’s day-to-day operations worldwide, a proposal being kicked around, outside the empty corridors of the UN, has triggered the question: will senior officials, including the Secretary-General, the Deputy Secretary-General (DSG), Under-Secretaries-Generals (USGs), including 60 heads of UN agencies, Funds and Programmes, and Assistant Secretaries-Generals (ASGs), volunteer to take salary cuts — even as a symbolic gesture?
Kul Gautam, a former UN Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director of the UN children’s agency UNICEF, told IPS: “I think it would be an excellent gesture of solidarity for the UN’s senior most officials, including heads of agencies, to agree to and announce a voluntary pay cut for themselves in response to the financial crisis resulting from COVID-19 that is impacting the UN system itself and the peoples of the world it serves.”
Dr Leila Fourie, Group CEO of the Johannesburg Stock Exchange, and FaniTiti, CEO of Investec, who are members of the UN Secretary-General’s Global Investors for Sustainable Development Alliance, said: “We are proud of the leadership shown by South Africa’s President in responding to the pandemic. This is why we have both chosen to join the President in donating 30% of our salaries for three months to COVID-19 relief efforts.”
Asked about a gesture by UN staff in Cabo Verde to donate their salaries, UN Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters May 19: “We have staff in New York who have donated goods and services to the pandemic, whether it’s to deliver food. So, I think it’s not uncommon for UN staff to either volunteer or to give back to the communities where they work.”
He also said that in Cabo Verde, half of the UN country-team members, around 50 staff from UN entities and the Resident Coordinator’s office, made donations to the Government’s COVID-19 efforts.
This totalled slightly less than $5,000 and directly helped 46 families in need.
In an opinion piece published by IPS in April, Ambassador Anwarul K Chowdhury, a former USG and High Representative of the UN (2002-2007) and Permanent Representative of Bangladesh to the UN (1996-2001), underscored the point that “If the liquidity crisis keeps on affecting the work of the UN and its mandate delivery, the UN staff as a privileged part of the humanity, should join in making creative efforts, placing interests of the world body ahead of their sacrifice.”
“One such measure could be for UN staff to allow the UN to withhold 20% of their monthly salaries to offset the impact of the current liquidity crisis”.
“When the liquidity situation gets better, say in six month’s time, that 20% would be paid back”.
UN SG and his Senior Management Team, he said, should lead by example announcing they would do so voluntarily.
Ambassador Chowdhury told IPS: “To that I would now add that for the SG and his Senior Management team, there should be a self-announced 20% pay cut for the next six months.”
“That would be welcomed by the international community wholeheartedly and would show the commitment of UN leadership to the broader mission of the UN for humanity,” he noted.
As a support, staff for day-to-day work and positioned at bottom-most levels, this proposal should exclude all the General Services staff of the UN, said Ambassador Chowdhury, former Chairman of the UN General Assembly’s Administrative and Budgetary Committee during the 52nd session of the UN General Assembly (1997-1998).
The UN, which remains closed till the end of June due to the pandemic, is facing a growing cash crisis, due in large measure, to late or non-payment of dues by an overwhelming majority of the 193 member states.
The numbers are staggering: $1.63 billion is owed to the UN’s regular budget and $2.14 billion to the peacekeeping budget.
The US apparently owes about $486.7 million in unpaid arrears, but has promised to deliver by the end of the year —depending on the fluctuating political mood swings of a volatile President.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says “unpredictable cash inflows” have been exacerbated by the deadly COVID-19 pandemic while seriously threatening the UN’s ability to do its work — even as nearly 36,000 staffers worldwide are working from home.
As of January 2019, the gross salary of an USG, the third high ranking job in the UN hierarchy, was $198,315 and an ASG pulled in about $179,948, excluding post adjustments, hospitality expenses and travel per diem.
The proposed programme budget for 2020 does not provide a breakdown of the actual salaries of the SG and DSG but the “post costs” for the SG’s salary and benefits were increased from $457,500 in 2018 to $585,200 both in 2019 and 2020, excluding hospitality expenses, a residence and a car.
The proposal for voluntary pay cuts come at a time when some of the world’s political leaders, including PM Jacinda Ardern of New Zealand and three Presidents– HalimahYacob of Singapore, Cyril Ramphosa of South Africa and Uhuru Kenyatta of Kenya – have all taken voluntary salary cuts, along with some of their deputies and senior staffers.
At a press conference in late March, Ardern announced she, and other lawmakers, will be taking a 20% pay cut for the next six months, in solidarity with those affected by the coronavirus. Which begs the question: Why aren’t other Western leaders following in her footsteps?
Ian Williams, author of UNtold, President of the New York Foreign Press Association and a former President of the UN Correspondents Association (UNCA), told IPS comparisons are odious, as Shakespeare correctly said.
He pointed out that years of anti-UN propaganda by US conservatives has left the impression that UN staff in general, let alone senior management, are paid massive amounts.
But over the decades, emoluments for public servants have been held down while those for corporate management have ballooned, he noted.
And while the UN staff are paid salaries, the private sector are “compensated” with stock grants and options and bonuses. There is no doubt that by their own self-proclaimed standards, as business tanks, so should the CEO salaries, but whether that should apply to international civil servants is moot, he added.
However, said Williams, while UN managers might be poor relatives to their private counterparts, odious comparison still apply. They are much better paid than junior staff, and immeasurably better off than most of “us, the peoples of the world.”
“So while on one level they should not take a payout to reflect the crisis in the world economy and the effects on the UN budget, they should indeed “volunteer” to take a hefty drop in pay, for the sake of their collective reputation as public servants and for the image of the international organisation as whole. Few will starve as a result,” declared Williams.
Meanwhile, in the corporate sector, the voluntary pay cuts have been on the rise.
The writer can be contacted at thalifdeen@ips.org