Did the United Nations give cash to Kim Jong Il?

According to yesterday’s Chicago Tribune, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) may have funded Kim Jong Il’s North Korean regime, a practice that went on for years and was only halted earlier this month. Every day, a North Korean official would show up at UNDP’s Pyongyang office, pick up an envelope stuffed with cash, then go quietly on his way.

…we were being used completely as an ATM machine for the regime,” said one UN official with extensive knowledge of the program. “We were completely a cash cow, the only cash cow in town. The money was going to the regime whenever they wanted it.”

The Tribune article says that up to $150 million in hard foreign currency may have been transferred over the years, violating U.N. regulations that aid be given in local currency. Moreover, there was little to no follow-up to ensure that the money went to designated aid programs. And when UNDP officials were allowed to make their rare visits to projects that they funded, North Korean officials placed strict restrictions on where, when, and how those visits could happen.

In January, Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon ordered an audit of all U.N. operations in North Korea, to be completed by mid-April. However, the U.N. didn’t sent out a notification letter that it was beginning the audit until March 1. That also happened to be the same day that the UNDP’s Pyongyang office ceased operations, saying that it would not be able to comply with new guidelines issued in January that forbade it from making payments in cash.

The U.N. is constantly criticized—sometimes fairly, sometimes not—for its unwieldy bureaucracy, corruption scandals, and bungled communications. If it turns out that the UNDP was engaged in any kind of wrongdoing, it would be a huge pity, especially since it seems to be one of the few U.N. agencies that’s actually fairly effective.