Jan 27th 2011
ROME
To rent: tenant with steady job preferred
WORTHY but low-profile, the Rome-based International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is a United Nations agency that helps the world’s rural poor, mainly through low-interest loans and grants. Its director since April 2009 is Felix Kanayo Nwanze, an experienced Nigerian agricultural entomologist. He has brought what an admiring report last year termed a “more evangelical” approach to the job, berating as “mercenaries” staff who lack personal involvement in their work and care too much about their generous UN pay and allowances. He has pushed through cuts aimed at making IFAD leaner and fitter.
Yet he is now at the centre of a row over his own benefits. When IFAD’s Governing Council opens its annual meeting on February 19th, one of the agenda items will be the grandly worded “Emoluments of the President”.
Mr Nwanze’s salary is “on a par” with that of the boss of the much bigger Food and Agriculture Organisation; plus an annual $50,000 representation allowance, and his entire housing costs. In October Italian Insider, a newspaper, reported that housing Mr Nwanze, his wife and their three children cost an annual €400,000 ($545,000). They lived in a villa on the Appian Way “set in two hectares of manicured lawns and parkland”. The monthly rent alone was €16,000. IFAD says the total for 2010 was less than budgeted, though more than €300,000. Although less palatial than, say, the British ambassador’s residence, many might find it opulent for the head of an outfit that aims to help the billion-odd who live in rural wretchedness.
IFAD at first declined to discuss the issue, saying only that the executive board had “closed the matter” and had “expressed their satisfaction with the transparent manner” in which it was handled. Pressed for more detail, it said Mr Nwanze had left his villa for somewhere costing only €10,000 a month, the same amount his predecessor paid.
It added that he had asked his staff to find him new housing as long ago as July. A spokeswoman said that Mr Nwanze had neither chosen his original villa, nor negotiated the rent. Information about its true cost had become available only “in a gradual fashion” and the president had “taken full responsibility for any errors in judgment”. The hot potato flew farther: IFAD’s board acknowledged its “shared responsibility”; but it also blamed poor guidance from a committee that deals with pay and allowances. That reconstituted body will now report on Mr Nwanze’s “overall emoluments and other conditions of employment”.
By the bland standards of the UN world, this is stormy stuff. Nobody has alleged wrongdoing. But it hardly seems the hallmark of a well-run organisation. Especially one that should have its collective mind firmly focused on leaner and meaner pastures.
http://www.economist.com/node/18008043
ROME
To rent: tenant with steady job preferredWORTHY but low-profile, the Rome-based International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) is a United Nations agency that helps the world’s rural poor, mainly through low-interest loans and grants. Its director since April 2009 is Felix Kanayo Nwanze, an experienced Nigerian agricultural entomologist. He has brought what an admiring report last year termed a “more evangelical” approach to the job, berating as “mercenaries” staff who lack personal involvement in their work and care too much about their generous UN pay and allowances. He has pushed through cuts aimed at making IFAD leaner and fitter.
Yet he is now at the centre of a row over his own benefits. When IFAD’s Governing Council opens its annual meeting on February 19th, one of the agenda items will be the grandly worded “Emoluments of the President”.
Mr Nwanze’s salary is “on a par” with that of the boss of the much bigger Food and Agriculture Organisation; plus an annual $50,000 representation allowance, and his entire housing costs. In October Italian Insider, a newspaper, reported that housing Mr Nwanze, his wife and their three children cost an annual €400,000 ($545,000). They lived in a villa on the Appian Way “set in two hectares of manicured lawns and parkland”. The monthly rent alone was €16,000. IFAD says the total for 2010 was less than budgeted, though more than €300,000. Although less palatial than, say, the British ambassador’s residence, many might find it opulent for the head of an outfit that aims to help the billion-odd who live in rural wretchedness.
IFAD at first declined to discuss the issue, saying only that the executive board had “closed the matter” and had “expressed their satisfaction with the transparent manner” in which it was handled. Pressed for more detail, it said Mr Nwanze had left his villa for somewhere costing only €10,000 a month, the same amount his predecessor paid.
It added that he had asked his staff to find him new housing as long ago as July. A spokeswoman said that Mr Nwanze had neither chosen his original villa, nor negotiated the rent. Information about its true cost had become available only “in a gradual fashion” and the president had “taken full responsibility for any errors in judgment”. The hot potato flew farther: IFAD’s board acknowledged its “shared responsibility”; but it also blamed poor guidance from a committee that deals with pay and allowances. That reconstituted body will now report on Mr Nwanze’s “overall emoluments and other conditions of employment”.
By the bland standards of the UN world, this is stormy stuff. Nobody has alleged wrongdoing. But it hardly seems the hallmark of a well-run organisation. Especially one that should have its collective mind firmly focused on leaner and meaner pastures.
http://www.economist.com/node/18008043
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