1 - Unlawful recruitment of inappropriate staffs at ICIMOD (Part 1)

Kathmandu based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) has become new hub of illegal employment of foreigners who are on short visit to Nepal without work permit or proper visa to work in Nepal. Sources claim there are more than a dozen such cases, who are employed illegally and following to staff pressures, their visas are converted at the later stage. But questions here are – How can one time criminal be excused for breaking law of Nepal and given the privilege and immunities of a diplomat as a staff of ICIMOD? How can ICIMOD continue such malpractice violating Nepalese law and breaking all norms and values of a diplomatic mission? If this is happening and Government of Nepal is aware of it, why ICIMOD is not trashed from Diplomatic Mission? And if ICIMOD wants to function as neutral Diplomatic Mission in town, why it doesn’t fire such inappropriately recruited staffs and publicly apologize with the Government of Nepal?

Interestingly the list of inappropriately recruited staffs includes several key positions that are expected to keep institutions clean, transparent and healthy. However when they are recruited illegally and inappropriately, wouldn’t it be a foolish thought to believe ICIMOD operates fairly anymore? Few examples of such recruitment:

1.      Miriam Lindwer, Senior Officer, Human Resources / Organizational Development, Unit Head HR/OD: Former low profile worker at a Hotel in Kathmandu, Ms. Lindwer was recruited by ICIMOD to help with its human resources management and capacity building activities. Partial funding for her recruitment was offered to ICIMOD by Centre for International Migration and Development (CIM) run by German Development Mission Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ). Upon knowing that Ms. Lindwer do not meet minimum requirements to work in Nepal, CIM requested ICIMOD to go for other candidate as CIM didn’t want to rule against Nepalese law and the recruitment was delayed by few days. However, then ICIMOD Director General Andreas Schild recruited her anyway without any correction which is against the Human Resources Policy of ICIMOD and existing law of Government of Nepal. With changing time, Ms. Lindwer now heads Human Resources  Unit of ICIMOD since 2011 trashing away decades old experiences staffs. As a result, ICIMOD HR system is now badly spoiled  and we will be presenting many such cases in days to come. Here what else one can expect from ICIMOD head and inappropriately recruited HR Unit head?

2.      Amy Elizabeth Sellmyer, Publication and Editing Officer: ICIMOD recruited Ms.  Sellmyer, an American as head of the Publications and Editing unit without any formal recruitment process or announcements. Prior to that she was associated with ICIMOD as a proofreader. This comes as a big surprise to many people who know ICIMOD for long time as the post of coordinating editor is highly valued and critical for ICIMOD’s work and it was previously occupied by some well known editors such as Dr. A Beatrice Murray, Ms. Greta Rana among others. Since ICIMOD follows British English it is unnatural to have an American Editor at ICIMOD. When approached no one at the Centre had answer to the question - what made a low profile proofreader Publication and Editing Officer overnight and how ICIMOD will maintain quality of its publications in coming days that are already noticed downgraded. However this recruitment was not free from opposition. When opposed, sources claim it was Ms. Anja Møller Rasmussen, Senior Manager, Knowledge Management and Communication at ICIMOD, who interfered in this matter and instructed to recruit Ms. Sellmyer without any delay avoiding all other formalities and her proposal was supported by Senior Management Committee (SMC) at ICIMOD. Like Ms. Lindwer, Ms. Sellmyer was also employed inappropriately when she neither had work permit nor valid visas. She was first recruited in 2012 (without work permit or valid visas) by another American Ms. Andrea Perlis, who was heading publications unit at ICIMOD in 2012.

These are only representative examples. We will soon disclose many other cases that exist at ICIMOD. With this information, we request the concerned authorities to do investigation about staffs recruitment and management issues at ICIMOD, stop all unlawful practices, and immediately remove from the post inappropriately recruited staffs and deport them as per the existing law of Nepal.