East Timor’s deputy prime minister abused his power by securing a plum UN job for his wife in which she was overpaid thousands of dollars, a leaked ombudsman’s report alleges.
The July 9 report by East Timor’s Ombudsman Sebastiao Ximenes recommends an investigation be opened into Jose Luis Guterres over allegations that he improperly gave his wife, Ana Maria Valerio, a job as counsel to the UN ambassador in New York in 2006.
Guterres’ actions were “an abuse of power, and breached the applicable laws resulting in irregularities and prejudice to the state in favor of the family,” the report said.
“This conduct amounts to acts of collusion and nepotism,” it said.
Appointees should be career diplomats who have worked through various lower-level posts, “prerequisites Ana Maria Valerio did not fulfill,” the damning report said.
The alleged abuse of power included the leader’s wife being overpaid about US$12,000 in housing allowances reserved only for East Timorese diplomats and citizens working overseas who don’t have homes, the report said.
Guterres was appointed as East Timor’s ambassador to the US in 2002 before becoming the country’s ambassador to the UN.
He returned to East Timor in 2006 to take up the post of foreign minister, but before he left, he gave his wife her new job, breaking a number of anti-corruption laws in the process, the report says.
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