KENYA: UNHCR EMPLOYEES UNDER INVESTIGATION

(20 Feb 2001) English/Nat
TOKO MATERIAL
At least four United Nations (U-N) employees are under investigation for allegedly extorting bribes from refugees seeking resettlement in Western countries, a U-N spokesman said on Monday.
Regional spokesman for the U-N High Commissioner for Refugees, Paul Stromberg, said three Kenyan employees have been assigned new duties pending the outcome of the probe.
The allegations centre on claims that refugees seeking resettlement in the United States, Canada, Australia and Europe had been asked to pay bribes of up to five thousand U-S dollars.
Stromberg explained that an Italian employee believed to be connected with the case has not had his contract renewed.
Three other U-N employees who knew about the scheme - one of them American and the other two Europeans - were withdrawn from the Nairobi office last year after they received death threats.
"They were threatened with death if they cooperated with the investigation," Stromberg said. "We had real reason to take the threats seriously, so we moved the staff out of the country."
A fourth person was relocated at least temporarily because of death threats, Stromberg added.
The U-N-H-C-R started an investigation in December 1999 into allegations that members of its staff were taking bribes to help refugees in Kenya resettle in rich countries.
The initial investigation was inconclusive, so the organisation's central audit body was asked to step in last year, Stromberg reported.
There are nearly two hundred-thousand refugees in Kenya, of whom about three-quarters are from Somalia.
Most of the others come from Sudan, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Congo and Burundi.
International refugees are defined as having crossed an international border to flee persecution.
They usually face only three options: return home, be absorbed into the host country or be resettled elsewhere.
U-N refugee agency officials are responsible for screening applicants to determine the best candidates for resettlement.
They then submit those applications to Western governments, who agree to take a certain number of refugees as permanent immigrants every year.
One Somalian refugee in Kenya insisted the rumours were true, and accused the United Nations of only helping refugees who are prepared to pay bribes.
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"That is true they assist only people who are carrying dollars and they are given special resettlement outside. They are not giving - they are not caring - for the right people. So these people we call them wolves - wolves are a cruel greedy person."
SUPER CAPTION: Osman Mohamed, refugee from Somalia
SOUNDBITE: (English)
"So we help refugees in the long term, can either repatriate them, integrate them where they are locally, or resettle them to a third country. Is a key component of UNHCR's work and if these allegations are in fact true this has been a violation of that mandate and something we take very seriously and will react to accordingly."
SUPER CAPTION: Paul Stromberg, Information Officer for UNHCR Kenya
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