Page 39 - Bulletin, Vol.79 No.1, February 2020

OUR PENSION FUND

By Odette FOUDRAL

The UNJSPF is managed by the Pension Board which each year examines the reports
of the CEO and the Representative of the Secretary-General concerning investments.

This 10-day tripartite meeting enables the 33 representatives (11 for active staff, 11 for
Administration and 11 for the Member States) and representatives from FAFICS to
exchange views on all the items of the agenda.

This year was considered to be a budget year but administrative questions were also
considered.

1. Appointment of Mrs. McClean as Chief Executive of Pension Administration
(CEPA), on 1 January 2020
2. Job description for the future Secretary of the Pension Board and selection
procedure
3. Review of the proposals of the working group on the management of the Fund
4. Distribution of the seats on the Pension Board
5. And, of course, the 2020 budget and revision of the 2019 budget
6. Suppression of the two directorial posts in the Geneva Office of the Pension
1
Fund .
As soon as AFICS was informed of the suppression of the two posts, action was taken;

1. The President of FAFICS and the FAFICS representatives on the budget
committee were contacted and requested to intervene to prevent a restructuring
that would be disastrous for Geneva. These representatives argued that the
transfer of these posts was not a budgetary question but arose from the
managerial prerogatives of the CEO which could not be discussed by the budget
group. Nevertheless, this decision resulted in the transfer of a D1 and a P5 post
from Geneva to New York. The D1 post has been used to create a post of
Secretary to the Pension Fund at no extra cost, despite the fact that this was not
required by Resolution 73/274, adopted in 2018.
2. We approached the interim CEO who confirmed the proposal, basing the
argument on the poor results of the Geneva Office.
3. We referred the matter to FAFICS since the Geneva Office also serves retirees in
Vienna, Paris and Rome as well as countries in Africa but were disappointed to
discover that AAFI-AFICS Geneva was the only association that defended the
importance of the Geneva Office, with the exception of the UN SPC. It is not
surprising, therefore, that the Pension Board accepted this decapitation.
4. However, we tried once again to change the course of events, meeting with the
interim CEO and insisting with FAFICS that the decision should be left to the
incoming CEPA (Chief Executive of Pension Administration). At present
resolution 2019 is still available only as a proposal, and the axing of the P5 post

1. Hereafter referred to as “Geneva Office”.

AAFI-AFICS BULLETIN, Vol. 79 No. 1, 2020-02 35