Audit report on UNDP to be presented to U.N. general meeting

Yonhap
5/11/2007

An external audit report on United Nations activities in North Korea will be presented to a general meeting of the United Nations next week, a Washington-based radio station reported Friday.

Citing an informed source, Radio Free Asia said that an audit report is being made of the relevant documents and information without the inspectors visiting the communist country. The audit of all U.N. operations in North Korea began in March amid U.S. allegations that U.N. aid money was being diverted to the North’s regime.

The U.N. Development Program (UNDP) said it has completed the process of wrapping up all of its operations in North Korea, and its two remaining staff members were supposed to leave Pyongyang last week.

The agency suspended operations on March 1 because North Korea failed to meet conditions set by its executive board following suspicions that the aid money might be diverted for illicit purposes, including the development of nuclear weapons. It withdrew seven of its nine international staff in mid-March.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon ordered an external audit of all U.N. operations in North Korea that began on March 12.

The UNDP’s office equipment and materials are currently being safeguarded by the World Food Programme in Pyongyang and will be available to the auditors, officials from the international body said.

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