Time to sweat the small stuff

UN | Renovation deserves scrutiny Oil-for-Food never had | Priya Abraham

By Kofi Annan's admission, it was the best funding offer the United Nations had received. But for fussy member states, the $1.2 billion U.S. loan to renovate the world body's Manhattan headquarters was not good enough.

The reason was the United States' terms—a 5.54 percent interest rate over 30 years, offered early last year and never accepted. With the offer's Sept. 30 deadline past, member nations still seem to be holding out for an interest-free loan, like the one the United States gave when the UN first built its iconic complex in Turtle Bay in 1952. For conservative Washington lawmakers, meanwhile, the real controversy is the whopping $1.2 billion price tag attached to renovation.

That the little-known UN project drew any notice is testimony to the impact of the $100 billion Oil-for-Food corruption scandal. Even with Secretary-General Annan implicated, the world body is ill-inclined to remove him as nations gather for their landmark 60th session in New York. But scandal breeds suspicion, and now any dubious UN spending is up for scrutiny.