United Nations — The official in charge of the U.N. headquarters renovation announced his resignation Thursday, saying he was frustrated by bureaucratic and political wrangling that have resulted in years of delay and massive cost overruns.
Louis Frederick Reuter IV will depart at the end of June, less than a year after he was hired to get the U.N. Capital Master Plan back on track. The U.N. headquarters is out of date, but member states that must approve plans can't agree on a way forward.
Much of Reuter's job involved trying to cut through U.N. bureaucracy and persuade member states to move ahead, to little avail. In a statement, he said that wasn't the work he wanted to do.
"I am 62 years old and am interested in building buildings, not 'selling' them, which activity has constituted the majority of my work over the last year," Reuter said.
The resignation is a major setback for the project to renovate the U.N.'s glass-and-steel headquarters building on New York's East Side. The 39-story tower has not seen a major overhaul in its 60-year existence and now violates safety and fire codes.
Comments
dizzy_from_your_spin 10 years, 4 months ago
Are you surprised? Why would a remodel job at the UN operate any differently than the UN governing body itself? More than just the building needs to be overhauled.
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