UPDATE: Tribune de Geneve (Swiss newspaper) reports on the petition. 

Staff retiring from UN organizations must now wait six months before receiving their first pension payment, putting thousands in financial penury. This is largely due to the calamitous implementation of a new IT system at the UN joint staff pension fund.

Its CEO, Sergio Arvizu has since last summer refused to acknowledge the severity of the problem nor propose adequate steps to deal with it. He has variously blamed other organizations and his own staff for the delays, without taking any responsibility for the suffering of retirees. He also ignored advice that could have prevented the crisis in the first place. 

These problems compound and likely also result in part from:

• an already existing low morale among pension fund staff;
• two hard-fought but fortunately unsuccessful campaigns by the CEO, played out in the public sphere, to circumvent UN hiring and procurement rules; and
• serious lobbying efforts by the CEO to prevent an investigation into allegations of mis-management made against him by a number of his staff.

It is now clear that the CEO is not the right person to solve the problems at the pension fund, nor provide inspired leadership to his staff. The fund needs a new CEO with the skills to fix the problems at the fund and restore staff morale.

We call on Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to:

• terminate CEO Arvizu's contract;
• push for an urgent meeting of the pension fund's board to resolve the crisis;
• start the search for a new, competent CEO; and
• pay interest on late pension payments.

As a staff member or retiree, your participation in this petition will make a difference. Ban Ki-moon has terminated senior staff for much less.

For more information, please visit this page. This petition has been created by the three staff federations of the UN common system.