More Than US$100,000 Wasted on ECCC Monitoring

Posted on 26 April 2008.
The Mirror, Vol. 12, No. 557

“On the morning of 25 April 2008, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia [ECCC] held a conference to release the result of the special monitoring over an accusation of corruption in the tribunal of the former Khmer Rouge leaders; it is asserted that there is no fault as had been raised in the accusation.

“The United Nations Development Program [UNDP] Country Director for Cambodia Mr. Jo Scheuer, who participated in the press conference this morning, said that about a year ago, because of different irregularities and accusations, the UNDP pushed for an internal audit of the process of staff recruitments for the tribunal of former Khmer Rouge leaders, to respond to points which were considered to be weaknesses in the management of human resources.

“He continued that all weak points were reviewed, in the reports and in the ongoing audits in the ECCC, and some recommendations continued to be raised to be solved. While the audit was continuing, the ECCC had already begun different measures of improvements, such as creating a staff work books and a code of ethics.

“The UNDP Country Director said that in late February 2008, the UNDP hired an independent monitoring team to monitor the management of human resources. This renewed monitoring aimed to assess the management of human resources so far. Among the monitors, two were management experts from India, another team member is Khmer, an expert on human resources. The monitoring took four weeks to be finished.

“The director of the Office of Administration of the ECCC, Mr. Sean Visoth, told reporters that this special monitoring was initiated by the Project Council, and it was implemented since late February 2008 by an independent expert team from the Deloitte company in India. This renewed monitoring aimed mainly to finish the reports of the previous audits of the ECCC.

“Mr. Sean Visoth went on to say that the monitoring is to show clearly whether there is transparency and accountability in the management of human resources, and in the implementation of human resources policies in the ECCC, and whether these are in line with international standards, and whether or not the responses satisfy what was raised by the Project Council. The director of the Office of Administration of the ECCC said that although not everything can be done perfectly, it had been possible to achieve what had been intended. Mr. Sean Visoth claimed that more than US$100,000 was spent on the monitoring team.

“The European Community Charge d’Affaires in Cambodia, Mr. Rafael Dochao Moreno, said that the community has strongly vowed to fight different the culture of impunity and crimes. The ECCC work in the last two years was processed under the strict monitoring of the donor community.

However, what regrettable is the management of human resources in the ECCC. At the same time, the European Community also called for the monitoring on the accusation in order to use the finance correctly. The European Community is also satisfied with the most positive reports by the monitoring team. Nonetheless, the European Community asked for further efforts to promote the management of human resources. Meanwhile, the European Community declared to support the ECCC with both policy and finance.

“According to the monitoring reports, after the evaluation at place within two weeks at the ECCC, the Project Council is pleased to announce that no essentially weak points were found, and the implementation of human resources at this stage meets acceptable standards.

“Although the monitoring did not shows any irregularity, the tribunal still has a problem – funding; on that morning, the ECCC and the European Community did not show to have any extra funds.”

Kampuchea Thmey, Vol.7, #1625, 26.4.2008