UN Secretary General’s spokesman says top officials encouraged to act with ‘utmost integrity’ after three former presidents named in Patrick Ho trial
- Farhan Haq, spokesman for António Guterres, tells the Post that, since 2016, General Assembly presidents have had to make a pledge of transparency
- Three former presidents of the General Assembly were named in the recent bribery trial of Patrick Ho
The United Nations has encouraged its top officials to carry out their duties with the utmost integrity, after three former presidents of the UN General Assembly were named in the US$2.9 million bribery scandal of former Hong Kong minister Patrick Ho Chi-ping.
Replying to questions from the Post, Farhan Haq, a spokesman for UN Secretary General António Guterres, said the world body had cooperated extensively with United States investigators in the case, “by making thousands of pages of documents available and providing access to its personnel”.
The three officials named in the case were former General Assembly presidents: Sam Kutesa from Uganda and his predecessors Vuk Jeremic from Serbia and John William Ashe from Antigua.
General Assembly presidents are elected for a year-long term, during which they preside over sessions of the world body at its New York headquarters.
Asked if the UN now had sufficient safeguards against corruption, Haq told the Post: “We have encouraged all presidents of the General Assembly to carry out their duties with the utmost integrity.”
Ho, a prominent eye surgeon who was Hong Kong’s secretary for home affairs from 2002 to 2007, was convicted by a New York court last Wednesday on seven of eight counts of bribery and money laundering.
