Dr. Coburn Questions Costs of U.N. Renovation Project
Welcomes Donald Trump as expert witness
July 21, 2005
(WASHINGTON, D.C.) – U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D. (R-OK), a practicing physician and Chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Federal Financial Management, Government Information, and International Security, held a hearing today that examined a proposed $1.2 billion U.S.-financed renovation of the United Nations headquarters. Donald Trump was among the witnesses who offered expert testimony.
“Congress has a moral responsibility to be good stewards of the American people’s generosity concerning U.N. funding. This renovation must help the U.N. fulfill its mission – to bring help, hope, freedom and peace to the darkest corners of the earth,” Dr. Coburn said.
Trump testified that he could complete the U.N. renovation at half the proposed $1.2 billion cost. Trump, New York’s premier real estate expert, also predicted that the costs of the U.N. renovation would soar past $3 billion because the organization “didn’t know what it was doing” regarding the project.
The United States is the largest donor to the United Nations system, contributing 22 percent of the regular budget and nearly 27 percent of the peacekeeping budget. The United States currently gives the U.N. more than $3 billion ever year.
When a recent Luntz poll (July 2005) asked a random sample of Americans how they felt about this loan 69% opposed it, and more than half of respondents strongly opposed it.
Dr. Coburn also criticized a “culture of secrecy” at the U.N. and said that the U.N. has kept the details of the competition for contracts in the dark.
“We can’t afford for the U.N. to go further away from its core mission. Will investment in a new building really buy the world more consensus in the Security Council? Will better conference space lead to more international cooperation after natural disasters? Are we to believe that, if only the U.N.’s 6,000 annual meetings were held in nicer, more climate-controlled rooms, that the world would find the will to stop genocide in Darfur?,” Dr. Coburn asked. “Would the U.N. be able to end child abductions in northern Uganda, forced abortions in China, or religious persecution in Saudi Arabia? Might there be needs more pressing than excessive contingency fees on a renovation project?”
