UN Pension Fund - UN staff pension fund investment chief’s jump to contractor sparks ethics concerns. August 10, 2025

 The sudden departure of the UN staff pension fund’s head of investment office to a firm contracted by the organisation has triggered concerns over potential violations of UN employment rules.

On 25 June, a notice appeared on the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund’s (UNJSPF) website announcing that the head of its office of investment management (OIM), Pedro Guazo, was stepping down as of 15 August, praising “his exemplary service, unwavering integrity, and visionary leadership”. The same day, the US-based Northern Trust Asset Management – the fund’s master record keeper – issued a press release naming Guazo as its new head of international and responsible investing, starting in August.

The UN's original announcement was quietly taken down that day, only to be reissued three weeks later with a much drier statement, indicating that Guazo had already left his post the day before. The timing and nature of his departure have raised eyebrows among staff. UN rules require a cooling-off period of one year before former employees may join vendors or contractors with whom they were involved in procurement matters during the previous three years.

Laura Johnson, executive secretary of the UN Staff Union in Geneva, alleges Guazo’s appointment while still in his UN role constitutes a “clear breach of the rules”. Northern Trust has been listed as the UN Pension Fund’s official master record keeper in documents dating as far back as 2018. While it isn’t clear whether Guazo interacted directly with Northern Trust, his senior role would typically entail oversight of key contracts.

Neither Guazo, Northern Trust nor the fund’s board respond to repeated requests for comment.

Staff unions have called on the secretary general, António Guterres, who appointed Guazo, to investigate the context of his departure. “We're hoping that this is being investigated within the UN, and also have questions about whether the vendor, Northern Trust, will also be investigated and held to account if found to have breached the conditions of its contract with the UN,” said Johnson. She added that the staff union was told that the UN was “looking into it”, but was not given any more details about the timeline and the scope of the inquiry.

When asked whether an investigation was underway, the deputy spokesperson of the UN secretary general, Farhan Aziz Haq, declined to comment “on internal individual personnel matters”. More broadly, he said “potential concerns regarding compliance with UN staff regulations, rules and policies are assessed in accordance with the organisation’s regulatory framework”, and that any vendor conduct is reviewed in accordance with the contract and under procurement procedures and policies. He did not address potential repercussions for violations.

Sanctions for breaching post-employment restrictions, according to UN documents, can include barring, suspending or terminating a vendor contract. For staff, the violation is recorded in their official file along with a recommendation against future employment by the UN.

Read more here: https://genevasolutions.news/sustainable-business-finance/un-staff-pension-fund-investment-chief-s-move-to-contractor-sparks-ethics-concern

UN Pension Fund - They Warned of Millions Lost in the Pension Fund. The UN Fired Them. August 10,2025

Last week, the UNDT issued a damning judgment, UNDT /2025/039, Applicant vs Secretary-General which will no doubt have the UN administration pursuing them like hell at the UNAT in an effort to reverse it.

Three bombshell findings before we dive into the details:

1. A senior staff member who dared to raise the alarm about UNJSPF investment policies (policies that resulted in the loss of millions in staff pension money) was swiftly retaliated against and terminated. So even when your warning turns out to be spot on, you’re the one who gets punished for daring to speak up.
2. The very rules that require staff to uphold “the highest standards of efficiency, competence and integrity,” and to promptly report breaches of UN regulations and rules, are the same ones the UN uses against you when it wants to terminate you.
3. Once again, we’re reminded that OIOS considers itself above the law, routinely defying Tribunal orders for evidence disclosure under the classic pretext of “operational independence.”

But that’s not all.

In this case, we also learn that OIOS’s so-called “seizure of IT equipment”and subsequent “forensic search” was nothing more than a fishing expedition into a staff member’s most private data: personal WhatsApp messages included in a desperate attempt to fabricate misconduct when there was none.

We’re reminded yet again: the Ethics Office’s so-called “protection against retaliation” policy is worthless. It’s time to shut it down alongside the equally hollow Ombudsman’s office. And while we’re at it, the newly created anti-racism office, which excels in PR but is functionally useless.

This case exposes the brutal extent of the Secretary-General’s defense apparatus led by OIOS and the Office of the Secretary-General itself, which will go to extraordinary lengths to protect its own, even if it means destroying careers and staff members’ personal lives.

A former Senior Investment Officer for Fixed Income with the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund (UNJSPF), holding a continuing appointment in the Office of Investment Management (OIM) and with over 17 years of UN service, was terminated shortly after raising concerns regarding potential losses of millions of dollars in UNJSPF investments.

The staff member had joined UNJSPF in 2008, right in the middle of one of the worst financial crises in modern history, and was entrusted with managing fixed-income portfolios as head portfolio manager. But things started shifting dramatically once a new Representative of the Secretary-General (RSG) came into office. Not only were the staff member’s responsibilities narrowed, but a new Director at the D-1 level was appointed, effectively sidelining his authority.

Read more here: https://certioraris.com/2025/07/03/they-warned-of-millions-lost-in-the-pension-fund-the-un-fired-them/

Read the judgment here: https://www.un.org/en/internaljustice/files/undt/judgments/undt-2025-039.pdf

UN Pension Fund: CCISUA: concerned about a lack of transparency on benefit payments, risk and outsourcing of investments and alarmed at the treatment of whistleblowers, July 25, 2024

Here's the latest evidence that there's a lot more than meets the eye in the constant stream of happy talk and self-promotion emanating from the UNJSPF management

The Coordinating Committee for International Staff Unions and Associations (CCISUA) expresses concern about a lack of transparency on benefit payments, increased risk and outsourcing regarding investments, and alarm at the treatment of whistleblowers, in a  resolution published today and conveyed to the Secretary-General, the President of the General Assembly, and the Secretary of the Pension Board: 

• “exceedingly long” processing times for payment of survivor benefits, with no related growth in the provisional benefits safety net; 
• that the Representative of the Secretary-General has continued to increase outsourcing of the fixed income portfolio, despite promises to the contrary made to CCISUA in 2022, bringing the total of the Fund’s outsourced portfolio to 28 per cent; 
• states concern that investment in high yield bonds increased risk contrary to promises to reduce risk in line with other pension funds; 
• notes some improvement in transparency in investment reporting but not to the standard of peer public pension funds; 
• expresses alarm at the treatment of whistelblowers who resported misconduct, with a loss of 150 years of expertise in the fund in a single year; 
• and calls on the Chief Executive of the Pension Fund and the RSG to, respectively, increase transparency on outstanding survivor and separation benefits payments, and on the investments of the Fund. 

Read the resolution here:

https://www.ccisua.org/wp-content/uploads/CCISUA-Resolution-on-the-United-Nations-Joint-Staff-Pension-Fund.pdf

UN Pension Fund members -CALL TO ACTION. Send your question directly to the RSG about the firing of whistleblowers from the Office of Investment Management, 3 April 2024

 

QUOTE from the Representative of the Secretary-General at today’s UNJSPF town hall,  3 April 2024:

“It was unfortunate that these four staff members were separated … [through a] complete independent investigation outside from the Pension Fund .. We have not experienced any…impact on the operations of the Fund...”

 

There's a 2-minute video (too large to post on the blog) and an unofficial transcript (below) of the RSG’s (Pedro Guazo’s response to the question submitted in advance by a number of us about the firing of four whistleblowers from the Office of Investment Management (OIM) and reportedly, indications of more terminations to come, and the impact on the Fund’s sustainability.

RECALL CCISUA’S LETTER  to the Secretary-General in which it was noted that the senior investment officers, were fired for reasons of “blowing  the whistle on what OIOS later found to be a toxic work environment”. in contravention of SG directives on “Protection against retaliation for reporting misconduct and for cooperating with duly authorized audits and investigations.” 

http://unpension.blogspot.com/2024/02/un-pension-fund-ccisua-letter-to.html

 

HERE’S THE QUESTION we posed to the RSG prior to the town hall. 

http://unpension.blogspot.com/2024/03/un-pension-fund-firing-of.html

 

If after watching the video of the RSG's response, or reading the transcript (below) you have questions, as I do about the RSG’s denial of any involvement of the Fund’s management in the firing of whistleblowers in OIM, please join me in sending the following question directly to his email inbox: Email: pedro.guazo@unoim.org

 

SEND THIS QUESTION:

 

Dear RSG,

Your response at today's town hall to the question about the firing of four whistleblowers  --OIM senior investment officers – and reported indications of more terminations to come, as stated in CCISUA’s letter to the Secretary-General, dated 21 February 2024 --both regarding your involvement, and the impact on the fund’s sustainability, raises further questions.

http://unpension.blogspot.com/2024/02/un-pension-fund-ccisua-letter-to.html

 

If, as you say, you believe that the firing of these senior investment officers is ‘unfortunate’, and you were in no way involved, then you must go on record as supporting CCISUA’s request to the Secretary-General to reconsider the decision to terminate these whistleblowers, for the sake of justice and transparency in the UN, and the sustainability of our Fund. 

 

Otherwise, your response to this issue, on its face, makes a mockery of UN values and principles and the ‘transformational’ culture that you profess to foster in the Fund. 

Signed (your name), UNJSPF member/beneficiary

. 

 ---------------------------------

. 

TRANSCRIPT OF RSG’S RESPONSE: “Let me first take the first part [of the question]. And probably, some of you that are familiar with the UN Secretariat’s working methods, you will understand. But a little bit more discreetly for some of you who are not part of the UN Secretariat. As you might know , , whenever there is a presumptive action that a staff member have misconducted or have an undisciplined event, it becomes a complete independent investigation outside from he Pension Fund. So we have an organization called the Office of Internal Oversight Services (OIOS), equivalent of internal auditors and investigators. They take control of the investigation. We, the management of the UN Pension Fund, are not involved in that. OIOS , as we call it, do their investigation and pass it to the Administrative Law Division in the UN Secretariat ,and between them, they gather all the evidence and they decide what is the sanction that they have to put to staff members. Of course , staff members ,they always have the right to appeal those decisions, and only after the whole process -- and again, it's conducted independently and externally from the Pension Fund --only when those  process is completed ,we will all know --including ourselves --we will only know what were the reasons why these four staff members were separated, not before that.

 

Now, the second part of the question is, as you can imagine,  it was unfortunate that these four staff members were separated in the process, in the period of two years, but, ah, given that we are  adequately staffed, we have  ISO certification of  business continuity, and we have not experienced any impact on the operations of the Fund ,and as I showed you in the previous slide, .the culture of the organization becomes stronger every year.”

 

UN Pension Fund: Firing of whistleblowers. Virtual town hall, 3 April 2024. Submit your questions by 27 March 2024 (5 March 2024)

UN Pension Fund members:  Please take action by submitting your questions about the firing of whistleblowers in the Office of Investment Management in advance of the Pension Fund's virtual town hall scheduled for April 3, 2024 (10 to 11 am New York time) (link below). See also the link for submitting questions.

Submit questions to the Representative of the Secretary-General (RSG) as follows: 

Remind him that retaliation against whistleblowers contravenes the UN’s whistleblower protection policy.

Ask him how, while the Secretary-General, as requested by CCISUA reconsiders the firing of senior investment officers/whistleblowers in the Office of Investment Management,  he intends to address Fund members' concerns about the impact of mass firings on the effective management of the Fund’s assets.

Note on possible future action: If the meeting produces no satisfactory result, the next step may be to submit the same questions directly to the RSG’s email inbox.

Submit questions here, before 27 March:

https://forms.office.com/pages/responsepage.aspx?id=2zWeD09UYE-9zF6kFubccGqoFrsXnohHpVChQZmuHV5UMU9IN1dRSjFETks0SFZTNzlSMFk1VVlUMi4u

Link to meeting information here including how to participate:

https://www.unjspf.org/newsroom/unjspf-virtual-global-town-hall-on-3-april/

IPS Inter Press: UN Whistle Blowers Fired for Challenging Risky Investment Policies of the Pension Fund, March 5, 2024

 

IPS Inter Press Service News Agency

"UN Whistle Blowers Fired for Challenging Risky Investment Policies of the Pension Fund

by Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 5 2024 (IPS) - The UN Ethics Office, established in 2006, has promoted an organizational culture in the world body, including integrity, professionalism, respect for diversity and protection for whistle-blowers.

But the UN Pension Fund, whose assets amount to a staggering $88.3 billion, is accused of firing four of its staffers, including senior investment officers, for challenging the wisdom of the Fund’s investment policies.

The firings have been criticized by two Staff Unions representing over 60,000 UN staffers worldwide.

In a letter to Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, the President of the Coordinating Committee of International Staff Unions and Associations, (CCISUA) Nathalie Meynet says the Unions are alarmed to learn about the recent dismissal of four senior investment officers, “with indications that more staff may be terminated.” 

“As you know, during the tenure of the previous Representative of the Secretary-General (in the Pension Fund), a group of senior investment managers decided to blow the whistle on what the Office for Internal Oversight Services (OIOS) later found to be a “toxic work environment”. They first raised their concerns with their direct management.” 

Feeling that the matter was not given the level of attention required, they also met with the Staff Union. Some, but not all, of those who are being dismissed, met with the US and Japan’s Permanent Missions. 

This undoubtedly, the letter said, had an impact in terms of changing the leadership of The Office of Investment Management (OIM). 

Subsequently these staff members were investigated, and their emails and WhatsApp messages scrutinized by OIOS, on the following charges: 

• Meeting with the US and Japan’s missions, or being aware that some of the staff in the group were meeting with those missions, and that sensitive information would be disclosed. 

• Raising concerns with the Staff Union and disclosing sensitive information...."

Read the full story here:

https://www.ipsnews.net/2024/03/un-whistle-blowers-fired-challenging-risky-investment-policies-pension-fund/

BOYCOTT FAFICS: Call to action to boycott FAFICS (the Federation of Associations of Former International Civil Servants), 24 February 2024

I believe it’s  timely, with the recent announcement by AFICS/NY of its upcoming annual meeting, to renew the call for a boycott of FAFICS -- the Federation of Associations of Former International Civil Servants with 60 associations world-wide, the purported representative of UN retirees including on important matters such as pension. 

See CISUA’s letter to the Secretary-General dated 21 February 2024 posted, below about the firing of four whistleblowers in the UN Pension Fund's Office of Investment Management, amid indications that more may be terminated, (quote): “We are also very concerned that the Organisation has failed to uphold Secretary-General Bulletin 2017/2/Rev.1 on Protection against retaliation for reporting misconduct and for cooperating with duly authorized audits or investigations [and] . . . that your actions, in firing so many OIM staff at once and in preventing staff from raising genuine concerns, creates an unacceptable risk to the management of Pension Fund assets.” 

This is only the latest action in which the Pension Board and FAFICS are active participants -- not merely complicit -- in the secretive and repressive culture surrounding the Fund, and in enabling the Fund leadership to avoid accountability, retaliate against, and now fire whistleblowers. 

 

Perhaps the FAFICS rallying cry many of its members are most familiar with is “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” (documented in its 2020 annual report)! -- while they risk breaking it by their own action and inaction. 

 

Recall that in 2020, FAFICS led the charge (again, evident in its 2020 annual report) to dismiss and shelve the almost 200-page independent governance report by Mosaic Governance Advisors, that reportedly cost the Fund (us, the Fund owners) $200,000. 

Mosaic compared the Fund with best practices among international public pension funds and found (quote) "insufficient clarity, transparency, and communication at all levels within the governance structure and with stakeholders (and) …rebuilding trust should be a priority”. 

Let that sink in: ‘rebuilding trust’. Mosaic found a lack of trust surrounding the Fund, one of the most fundamental values that one would expect to be present in any pension fund.

 

Not surprisingly, Mosaic also found “confusion” about roles, mandates and the meaning of fiduciary responsibility among Board members. Overall, and using diplomatic language, it found “significant variance” between Fund governance and best practices in the industry, and included “appropriate fiduciary training” for its members (II.I.B) among its many recommendations for aligning the Fund with industry standards. 

Recall that AFICS/NY revealed its anti-transparency antics as far back as 2016 when it notoriously and secretly wrote to OIOS discouraging an audit of benefits payments during a period when the Fund was experiencing unprecedented delays by which some Fund members were waiting up to two years for their pension payments. 

 

FAFICS has never relented in its tactics, and was part of the effort of the Pension Board to adopt onerous “confidentiality” requirements to use as a cudgel to quash dissent. 

In July 2022, facing a threat of expulsion from the board, CCISUA (the authors of this recent letter) chose to withdraw from that year's session of the Pension Board, as, it said, it “does not believe that a culture of secrecy contributes to the effective governance of an $80 billion public pension fund…” 

 

Make no mistake: it's not only about retiree interests. The actions of the purported UN retiree representative organization impacts ALL Fund members -- active and retired UN staff. FAFICS has non-voting status but punches far above its weight on pension matters.

 

FAFICS makes periodic cosmetic changes in its leadership. But the culture remains closed and autocratic. And no matter who’s publicly “leading”, the same AFICS/NY emerati-for-life continue to hold leadership positions and pull the strings from behind the curtain, while also occupying key seats on Pension Fund committees. 

 

I understand that the AFICS/NY boycott that I called for some years ago may have had more of an impact than I expected. AFICS/NY leaders have managed to get donations from the UNFCU to make up for a gap in member donations. (I hope UNFCU leaders will read this post). 

 

I’m now calling again for UN retirees worldwide, retired or about to retire, to withhold payment of dues or decline to join FAFICS-- all its associations -- or attend meetings and events, until the FAFICS leadership commits to real organizational change concerning its responsibility to its constituents including in transparency, communication, and most important, responsible Fund oversight as members of the Pension Board. 

UN retirees and staff must actively demonstrate our support for CCISUA's efforts. We cannot in good conscience stand by idly while UN staff union leaders are divided and co-opted, and whistleblowers in the UN Pension Fund are fired for voicing their concerns.

Often the only way for those responsible  to get the message is through their dwindling coffers. The fate of those fighting for our common interests, and the sustainability of our Fund, are at stake.