ACCORDING TO AN INTERNAL INVESTIGATION, the corruption and mismanagement in UN's procurement program may dwarf the Oil-For-Food scandal, George Russell and Claudia Rosett report:

How bad is the still expanding scandal in the United Nations' multi-billion-dollar procurement division? Based on a still-secret internal investigation, the answer is: for the U.N., it is just as bad as the gigantic Oil-for-Food debacle — or maybe worse.

The focus of the current scandal is U.N. peacekeeping, a function that consumes 85 percent of the U.N.'s procurement budget — a cost that could reach $2 billion in 2005. Like many of the U.N.'s financial dealings, it is shrouded in secrecy. And like the multi-billion-dollar Oil-for-Food scandal, it is wrapped in what the U.N.'s own investigators now call "systematic abuse," "a pattern of corrupt practices," and "a culture of impunity."

In all, U.N. investigators have charged that nearly one-third of the $1 billion in major U.N. procurement contracts that they examined involved waste, corruption or other irregularities — $298 million in all. And that total covered slightly less than one-third of the $3.2 billion in major supply contracts that the U.N. has signed in the past five years.

These conclusions are contained in a confidential 34-page report by the U.N.'s internal watchdog, the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), which landed on the desks of top U.N. managers just before Christmas. The document, blandly entitled "Comprehensive Management Review of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations — Procurement" was circulated to various U.N. departments for comments and corrections, as part of the world body's labyrinthine and often ineffectual process of self-criticism.

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