A United Nations investigative unit has found an unexpected amount of fraud and abuse at the UN and is investigating alleged sexual and financial offences.
"Our caseload has been very steady over the last three months, around 250 cases," Inga-Britt Ahlenius, head of the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), said. "We found mismanagement and fraud and corruption to an extent we didn't really expect."
Ms Ahlenius said two-thirds of the cases being reviewed related to peacekeeping missions. Around 80 involved possible sexual exploitation and abuse.
She noted investigators have confirmed that contracts worth around €500 million involved fraud at some level. The total UN peacekeeping budget for 2007-2008 exceeds €4 billion.
Ms Ahlenius said that the OIOS and its Procurement Task Force had so far submitted to UN's top management 25 reports detailing mismanagement, fraud and corruption.
Robert Appleton, head of the Procurement Task Force, a temporary body set up in 2006 after corruption was revealed in the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq, said only a minority of UN contracts were irregular, however, and that many allegations could not be substantiated.