12 December 2006 | Paul Snell

The UN procurement function has been criticised again after a newspaper revealed costs for the renovation of its New York headquarters reached nearly £1 billion.

According to a confidential report obtained by The Sunday Telegraph the cost of the renovation has grown $1.2 billion (£600 million), estimated on 2002, to $1.9 billion (£967 million). The newspaper claims that additional security measures and the construction of a temporary conference hall have attributed to the increase.

Last month the Government Accountability Office in the US released a report on the renovations, which concluded that they could cost another $1.4 billion (£712 million), but that "these funds could be at risk" if they were not protected from "weaknesses in the current procurement system".

In response, the UN said that the report was a "valuable and accurate assessment of the current state of planning". It also insisted that more resources had been allocated to make sure the capacity of the UN procurement service was improved.

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