The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) have publicly announced steps they are taking to ensure that Cambodian personnel at the tribunal are recruited in a transparent and effective manner, local media reported Wednesday.
In a joint statement issued late Tuesday, the ECCC, the United Nations, and UNDP, said that new recruitment procedures have been formalized, assessments of current employees will be conducted by the end of the year, and a mandatory code of conduct will soon be developed, according to the Cambodia Daily newspaper.
The joint statement added that the new code of conduct will ban "ECCC staff from receiving or soliciting payments other than salaries for the performance of official duties."
Earlier this year, New York-based legal NGO the Open Society Justice Initiative (OSJI) alleged that Cambodian members of staff were obliged to give high-ranking government officials kickbacks from their UN funded salaries in order to ensure their positions.
UNDP countered that it had contracted Malaysian firm Candide Consultancy to carry out a full human resources audit, but its results were never released publicly.
A report in the Asian Wall Street Journal last week claimed that the confidential audit found, "serious lapses in the recruitment process," and that, "all the recruitments of staff .. should be nullified."
Unless the Cambodian side agrees to measures ensuring the integrity of the project, the UN should consider withdrawing from the project altogether, said the audit.
"(Withdrawing from the ECCC) is not an option anyone is in a position to contemplate, but people recognize these are serious problems and have not hesitated to say so," a diplomat told the Cambodia Daily on condition of anonymity.
Source: Xinhua
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