The UN headquarters in New York

United Nations, July 5 (Reuters): The official tour will tell you the founding of the UN in 1945 brought the world from post-war misery toward prosperity and happiness. An alternative “dirty” tour will tell you the UN is crumbling.

The building, that is. While critics, particularly in Washington, may be worried about the oil-for-food scandal and investigations into mismanagement in allocating UN contracts, some at the UN have more practical concerns.

Such as leaky pipes lined with asbestos, creaky air conditioning systems and an eerie locked room housing outdated electrical systems pulsing with so much energy that computers won’t work on the floor below. Some years ago part of the roof blew off the sleekly curved General Assembly building, landing, by good fortune, on some parked cars rather than a passing ambassador. Inside the chamber where delegates from the 191 member states gather to discuss poverty, human rights, peace and security, even the ambassadors were not immune from danger.

“We had to replace the entire ceiling there because parts of the ceiling were falling down on delegates’ heads,” said Peter Wendeborn, one of the architects working on a six-year renovation plan for the UN complex due to start in 2007.

The UN has been working for years on a $1.2 billion Capital Master Plan for renovating its ageing headquarters on Manhattan’s East river, completed in 1952. Financing is not finalised since the US declined to make an interest-free loan, instead offering it at 5.54 per cent. Member states are still deciding what to do. The UN has been inviting diplomats, US congressmen and media to take the “dirty” tour of the building as part of a campaign to secure the necessary funding.

Not everybody is convinced. Senator Jeff Sessions, a Republican from Alabama, urged the US Senate in April to slash the proposed loan by half, saying $1.2 billion was an “outrageous” sum by commercial standards.

“This renovation plan is far too expensive. Donald Trump told me ... he had offered to do the project for $500 million, yet UN secretary general Kofi Annan did not seem interested,” Sessions told the Senate, referring to real estate tycoon Trump who has built skyscrapers throughout New York.

Meanwhile, Wendeborn wants to tell anybody who will listen that the architectural landmark which boasts the likes of Le Corbusier among its designers has not weathered well. Peeling back the cover of an air conditioning unit in a conference room high in the domino-shaped skyscraper that houses the UN secretariat, Wendeborn crouches and peers in. “That powdery stuff in the wall, it’s asbestos,” he says, adding that 4,000 units around the UN building contain asbestos, now linked to cancer and other diseases. “Whenever we want to put in a light fitting we have to bring in men in space suits,” Wendeborn said of the asbestos problem in the building.