Summary: The U.N. Secretariat's procurement system--which buys about $400 million of goods and services each years for its headquarters in New York, field missions, and other offices--has been criticized for its lack of accountability, fairness, and competition as well as its failure to deliver goods and services on time. For example, more than 50 percent of the contracts awarded in the past were not competed. This report (1) identifies the types of procurement problems that the Expert Group and U.N. audit and inspection organizations discovered, (2) assesses progress on the implementation of the Expert Group's recommendations and other reforms to correct procurement-related problems, and (3) assesses whether these actions have achieved the objectives of procurement reform. GAO found that although the Secretariat has made progress in reforming its procurement system, action in several areas is incomplete. Specifically, the Secretariat has not established formal procedures to address and adjudicate vendors' grievances, including the appointment of an independent ombudsman to help ensure fairness and openness. Also, even though the Secretariat now competes most contracts, competition is still not completely open because vendors are sometimes given too little time to prepare bid proposals. Other recommendations for ensuring transparency and accountability, such as developing a procurement manual for all to use, are partially completed. However, achieving this objective will be difficult until the Secretariat has developed performance measures to indicate whether it is reaching its targets for (1) timeliness in processing requisitions, (2) on-time delivery of goods and services, and (3) quality and cost of contract performance.
