Senior official from India resigns from UN post due to family reasons: UN spokesman

PTI, Mar 31, 2020, 8:58 AM IST

United Nations: A senior official from India has resigned from his position of Representative of the UN Secretary-General for the investment of the assets of the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund due to personal and family reasons, spokesman for Antonio Guterres said.

Sudhir Rajkumar, who had been appointed by Guterres in October 2017, resigned from his role effective at the close of business on March 31, said a statement issued by the UN spokesman on Sunday.

When asked at the daily press briefing on Monday about the reason for the sudden resignation by Rajkumar, Guterres’ spokesman Stephane Dujarric said “he decided to leave for personal and family reasons.

The Director of the Finance Division in the Office of Programme Planning, Finance and Budget of the Department of Management Strategy, Policy and Compliance, Pedro Guazo, will be appointed as the Acting Representative of the Secretary-General while the Secretary-General launches a recruitment process to find a successor to Rajkumar.

Dujarric said Guterres has accepted Rajkumar’s resignation. Obviously I think it’s clearly a volatile time for global markets. The Secretary General fully recognizes that this is a unique and difficult time in the financial markets as we all know, and he thought it necessary to act quickly and decisively to appoint an interim representative, he said, adding that Guazo will start his new role April 1 at the end of Rajkumar’s tenure.

The Secretary General has confidence in Guazo’s ability to run the fund immediately. Guterres has also asked Guazo to review the fund’s assets and brief him on the position of the fund within the next week, Dujarric said adding that and I will leave it at that for now.

The UN statement announcing Rajkumar’s resignation had said that Guterres thanked him for his service in managing the assets of the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Fund.

The Fund was established in 1948, by a resolution of the General Assembly, to provide retirement, death, disability and related benefits for staff upon cessation of their services with the United Nations.

Before his UN appointment, Rajkumar had been head of the global pension advisory programme at the World Bank Treasury, a role in which he provided advisory services to the National Pension Fund of the Republic of Korea, Ministry of Finance of Brunei Darussalam, South Africa’s Government Employees Pension Fund, KWAP – Malaysia’s second largest pension fund and the Nazarbayev University Endowment in Kazakhstan in addition to other public investment institutions globally, according to information on the UN website.

He began his career at the World Bank in Eastern Africa Operations as a Young Professional in 1988 and has worked in various regions and capacities with the World Bank and International Finance Corporation, including as Principal Investment Officer.

He holds a Master of Business Administration from the University of Chicago, a Master of Science in Economics from the London School of Economics and a Bachelor of Science in Engineering from the University of Delhi.