UNAMID ON PAE DEPARTURE

UNCLAS KHARTOUM 000986 DEPT FOR AF/SPG, S/CRS, AF SE WILLIAMSON ADDIS ABABA FOR USAU DEPT PLS PASS USAID FOR AFR/SUDAN SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV PREL KPKO SOCI AU UNSC SU SUBJECT: UNAMID ON PAE DEPARTURE REF: KHARTOUM 965 ¶1. (SBU) New Deputy Director of the UNAMID Liaison office in Khartoum Aziz "Peter" Iskandar discussed UNAMID deployment issues with poloffs on July 1. Iskandar, a career UN administrator, arrived in Khartoum in early June to work in UNAMID's Khartoum-based liaison office. The small office on the UNMIS compound, which formerly served only to forward diplomatic notes to the MFA and arrange travel to and from Darfur, will now serve as a key office for managing UNAMID administrative and logistics issues in Khartoum. ¶2. (SBU) Asked how the UN plans to ensure continuity and progress on projects conducted by PAE, Iskandar said that GOS officials continually remind him that DPKO A/SYG Jane Holl-Lute promised the GOS that PAE would not be granted any more extensions and will leave Sudan by July 14. Given this promise, Iskandar said he has no option other than to plan for PAE's departure, but identified several avenues that the UN will explore to replace them. These include increasing the use of UNAMID's own TCC contingent engineers, relying on local Sudanese contractors for construction - and providing technical expertise via training programs to local companies, and advocating that PAE use their local partners in Sudan to hire experienced PAE individual contractors. He said that the use of UNAMID military contingent engineers will likely not work, as they are good at building roads and perhaps drilling wells, but not more technical construction and maintenance work. The problem with the other avenues such as local contractors is that they lack a robust procurement capability, which is difficult to replace. ¶3. (SBU) Iskandar opined that PAE should have considered the use of Sudanese partners or offshore front companies before bidding as contractor, knowing that their U.S. association would make them targets by the GOS. He said the use of front companies would be particularly useful to keep the APC maintenance technicians available. However, Iskandar admitted that the use of partners to front for PAE contractors and technicians would be difficult to sell to UN bureaucrats "who lack an entrepreneurial culture." In the case of food service, Iskandar said there may be no choice but to use a front company to retain the current PAE subcontractor, the Italian caterer ESCO. Iskandar said that due to its contract with PAE, ESCO cannot assume another contract while they are working for PAE (there is a six-month non-compete clause). ¶4. (SBU) Comment: Iskander's positive "can-do" attitude is a departure from the usual UN bureaucratic stance. His ability to make decisions and advocate on behalf of PAE has enabled PAE to do "four months of work in four weeks" in the words of PAE management. Nonetheless, PAE is unlikely to work through front companies at this late hour, and Iskandar and UNAMID are likely to be left on their own with little support from DPKO. FERNANDEZ