 UN Geneva offices may need $1b repairs
(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-07-02 07:41 The Palais des Nations is crumbling. Built more than 70 years ago to house the United Nations' predecessor and then largely neglected, the grandiose structure has kilometers of leaky and rusted pipes and unsafe wiring, inefficient heating and cooling systems, and also suffers frequent floods. Its Russian director-general says the historic complex urgently needs repairs that could cost more than $1 billion. Sergei Ordzhonikidze said costly renovations of the New York headquarters had distracted attention from the dilapidated state of the UN's European base, which hosts 9,000 meetings a year.
"The old building is beautiful, but it is not that functional," he said in an interview in his vast office, where archaic electrical installations require him to flip 12 separate switches to turn the lights on or off. Annexes completed in 1952 and 1973 created extra room for the 4,000 staff now working in the Palais, on issues including nuclear disarmament, human rights and humanitarian aid. But the sprawling complex - with 15 hectares of floorspace set upon a 45-hectare park overlooking Lake Geneva - has never had a thorough refurbishment and falls short of modern safety and energy standards, Ordzhonikidze said. Even his ornate workspace, used by the head of the League of Nations until that UN precursor body was dissolved in 1946, lacks air conditioning, has drafty windows, and offers a view of the Palais' structural decay. "This door leads to a balcony. If you go out on the balcony, you see that everything is rusted. It's not nice," he said from behind his desk. UN facilities often fall into disrepair because donor governments are loathe to spend aid money on upgrading buildings at the expense of other projects such as the distribution of life-saving food and medicine. Ordzhonikidze said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had indicated he would support renovations for Geneva once the $1.9 billion New York facelift is complete. That project, managed by a unit of the Swedish construction company Skanska, is due to end in mid-2013. Agencies (China Daily 07/02/2008 page11) |
