MICT Staff Union addresses budget crisis with the Secretary-General

January 30, 2018

At the UN's recent Global Town Hall, MICT Staff Union requested assistance from the Secretary-General with the MICT's budget crisis. Staff Rep Gloria Otieno addressed the SG from our Arusha offices. Text of the exchange is below:

Unofficial Transcript
SG’s Global Town Hall on 17 January 2018

MICTSU’s Q & SG’s A

MICT SU: Thank you very much.

Greetings to the Secretary General from Arusha Tanzania and complements of the season from our staff located in our branches in Kigali, The Hague and here in Arusha. I believe you have covered our question already but I will ask the question all the same. The International Residual Mechanism – IRM, also known as MICT or the Mechanism is in a precarious position, with the General Assembly having granted us only limited funding for the coming year. One of the consequences is that staff now live in insecurity, uncertain of whether their contracts will be extended and if so, for how long.

Firstly, what can you and your office do to assist these staff members? And secondly, what guarantees can you give that the introduction of an annual budget will not lead to more of this kind of uncertainty and insensitive treatment of your staff globally? Thank you.

SG: First of all, the annual budget is something that exists everywhere in the world and it is not because of annual budgets or biannual budgets that things change in relation to staff security. What I believe is relevant in what you said is of course that we are very keen on making sure that the Mechanism has the adequate conditions to work. We will be working together with… I was, as you know in The Hague and I could see that the result of the work that remain and needs to be guaranteed by the Mechanism. We will do everything to make stable the conditions of work at the Mechanism but of course that will depend on member states, so I cannot make promises of things I cannot deliver. But, I am very conscious of the problems that you have raised and I am very determined to support both the Mechanism and also to make sure that our systems help the staff that will be impacted by any downsizing that eventually might take place.