BREAKING: AP Exclusive: UN health agency spent $192 million on 2018 travel; auditors see 'waste' and 'culture of non-compliance.'
FILE - In this Tuesday April, 16, 2019 file photo, an Ebola health worker is seen at a treatment center in Beni, Eastern Congo. Internal documents by The Associated Press show the World Health Organization spent nearly $192 million on travel last year, with staffers sometimes breaking the rules by flying in business class, booking expensive last-minute tickets and traveling without the required approvals.
But recent documents show WHO auditors found some WHO staffers were still brazenly misrepresenting the reasons for their travel to exploit loopholes in the organization’s policies and flying business class, which can be several times more expensive than economy, even though they did not meet the criteria to do so.
In a statement on Monday, WHO said “travel is often essential to reaching people in need” and noted more than half of its travel spending went to bring outside experts and country representatives, often from developing countries, to technical meetings. In 2017, the AP reported that WHO was spending roughly $200 million each year on travel, including first-class airplane tickets and five-star hotels for its director-general, Dr. Margaret Chan, which health experts said exposed the agency’s misplaced priorities.
While overall spending has fallen, abuses continue, documents show. In one report provided to the AP, external WHO auditors analyzed 116 randomly selected travel claims that were flagged as “emergency” requests and therefore exempt from stricter U.N. travel controls. They found proof that in more than half of the claims, the travel was instead for regular duties like attending workshops or speaking engagements.
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